No Knowledge, No Money, No Aim
by Eternal Payne
Summary: In a world where Neville Longbottom was marked as Voldemorts equal, Harry Potter is determined not to be his Inferior, and that leaves only one option... Not Slash.
1. Before Hogwarts

I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts of this that resemble the books are probably from it.

In a world where Neville Longbottom was marked as Voldemorts equal, Harry Potter is determined not to be his Inferior and that leaves only one option...

* * *

**June 3****rd**** 1981 – Voldemorts Lair**

"Which could it be...?" Lord Voldemort whispered to himself, he had just heard the prophecy from Severus, who had overheard it being told in the Hogshead. 'Would it be the half-blood or the pure-blood?' He would have said the half-blood, after all the Potter boy was a pure blood on one side and muggle on the other, just like himself and he knew how powerful he was. But he had looked at the relationship between Frank and Alice Longbottom, other than husband and wife, and they were very distant cousins rather than his maternal grandparents' twin brother and sister.

And the more pure blood the more powerful the child would be. But not too pure of course, it was all about balance...

Yes, the Longbottom child would be the Chosen One; he would deal with him himself. But Longbottom Hall was well protected, he would need a distraction. Bellatrix and the Lestranges had just finished a mission to the vampire covens, they would need a high value target to draw any reinforcements away, Diagon Alley would do.

And the Potters, well, he might as well clean up loose ends. He would send some lower ranked Death Eaters to deal with them...

* * *

**October 1****st**** 1981 – Potter Cottage**

James sighed; he and Lily had been in hiding for six months now ever since Dumbledore had revealed that bloody prophecy to them and the Longbottoms. He liked Frank and Alice, they were good people and he hoped You-Know-Who wouldn't target their son, Neville. He knew it was best for them to stay safe but _Merlin_ was it boring stuck in Godric's Hollow. He hoped it wouldn't be for much longer.

He felt a shiver go down his spine, the same shiver he got just before he and the other Marauders would get caught after a prank.

"Lily, I think we...

Suddenly the wards dropped, he could feel it. The magic linked to him, telling him of four intruders coming onto the property.

"Lily!" he shouted up the stairs, "Call for help, I'll try to hold them off!" He drew his wand from it holster on his arm and started transfiguring the room, determined to buy his wife and son some time. First he reinforced the walls before blowing out the window and sending out some transfigured animals to attack the intruders. A stag, a grim, a wolf and a giant rat, his personal Marauders bounded out of the hole and into the night, now illuminated by the glow of curses fired towards the house. He crouched next to hole, seeking cover, before returning fire, hoping Lily could find some help.

* * *

**Upstairs**

When Lily had heard James's cry she had quickly put Harry down in his crib from where she had been reading to him and moved over to the fireplace, grabbing the Floo powder and throwing it into the Fireplace.

"Sirius Black's Bachelor Pad!" she screamed as the flames roared green,

"...Boil you up some hot, strong love, to keep you warm..." she could hear his warbling echoing round the house he was staying in.

"Sirius! Where are you?" she watched as the door banged open and Sirius ran in his hair damp and a towel wrapped round him.

"Lils! What's wrong? I heard you shout," he said shocked,

"We're under attack, someone's found us," she gasped out, "Get Remus, get dressed and get here, we're going to need the help."

"What about Peter? Is he okay?" he responded, desperately trying to remember where he'd left his trousers.

"I don't know, we haven't heard anything about him," she replied before pulling her head out of the fire and turning to Harry. She ducked as the window behind her shattered, at this rate there wouldn't be a second floor left, as the roof was already gone thanks to James' transfigured attack birds. She picked him up and hurried down the stairs before placing him in the corner and conjuring some walls to protect him.

"Don't worry Harry, Mummy will be back soon," she said softly, as she saw her son's curious eyes watching her.

She finished the physical shields the started casting some wards over Harry's small fort before turning and hurrying to support her husband. There was no way they would take him from her or get to her son.

* * *

**Sirius Black's Bachelor Pad**

Sirius was hopping round his home, wand between his teeth, trying to pull on his trousers with on hand and throw the Floo powder into the fire place with the other.

"Thix magtholia crethenths!" he tried to shout at the fire.

Nothing happened.

He rolled his eyes and took his wand out of his mouth.

"Six Magnolia Crescent," he intoned carefully and quickly, he couldn't afford to waste any time after all. As soon as the fire turned green he stuck his head in and shouted for Remus. His shout woke a man sleeping in a chair by the fire, who clawed at the newspaper covering his face before throwing it to the side.

"Sirius?" he questioned, "what's wrong?"

"James and Lily are under attack, we need to help them!" he burst out,

"Move over," Remus ordered, "I'm going to them."

Sirius did so, trousers now in the right place, before taking another handful and throwing it into the fire

"Potter Cottage!"

* * *

**Potter Cottage**

James crouched by the remains of the sofa, now transfigured into a stone wall that was protecting him and Lily, watching with pride as some of his wife's nasty charms hid one of the Death Eaters in the face, causing their robes to attempt to strangling them and shove themselves down his throat.

He spun as he heard the fire roar, and pointed his wand at whoever was coming through. He sighed in relief as Remus calmly stepped into the room before laughing as he was bowled over by Sirius being shot out of the fire and into the back of his legs.

"How many are there?" Remus asked him as he ducked a sickly purple curse.

"Seven at the moment and another two dead," he responded, before levitating some debris, transfiguring it into long spikes and firing them out of the gap in the wall. He heard a scream and grinned to them.

"What about Peter?" Sirius asked, as several curses were fired from his wand towards the Death Eaters.

"Not a clue, they must have tortured his location out of him" James said angrily, determined to avenge his friend.

With Sirius's and Remus's arrival the tide began to turn and another two Death Eaters died in quick succession, before the enemy reinforcements apparated in, four of them, including one Peter Pettigrew.

James's mouth dropped, "Peter..."

Sirius was less reserved. "You traitor! You sold us out to Him!"

"W-what else c-could I have d-done!" he shouted back nervously, "He is so powerful!"

"Died for them! Like we would have for you!" Sirius was incandescent, and he abandon his position to fire curses off relentlessly, taking two down before a green light hit him in the chest, and he crumpled.

"Sirius!" the others screamed, before following his example and standing to take out the Death Eaters quicker. The air thickened as the amount of curses doubled, then tripled. Lily fell, her body covered in cuts of all sizes and losing blood rapidly, but not before three more Death Eaters followed suit. Next was Remus, a conjured silver dagger stuck in his throat, then more Death Eaters, then finally James collapsed. He knew he only had a few minutes left. His wand was still pointing at the last Death Eater, his former friend and current traitor, Peter Pettigrew.

"P-please J-James," he squeaked nervously "Y-you w-wouldn't k-k-kill a f-friend, a b-brother, w-would you?"

"No... no, I wouldn't," he gasped out, as his wand dropped from shaky fingers, and with James Potter followed his friends to the next life.

Peter breathed a sigh of relief before clutching his chest. Or rather, where his chest used to be. His eyes glazed over and his body fell to the floor.

"For Harry, I would," Lily said, lowering her wand and pulling her body out of the pool of her own blood, and towards the fireplace where she could call for help.

Before she got have way however, she bled out.

The lower floor and the outside the cottage had been completely devastated, bodies and Debris everywhere. The upper floors were worse, having completely collapse in on themselves, and only the residual magic kept it from collapsing into the ground floor. James, Lily, Sirius and Remus were dead but it had taken an unlucky thirteen Death Eaters to do so, their bodies now cooling in the night.

With Lily's death the defences protecting the youngest Potter dropped and the curious child crawled to his mother's body. He shook her, gently at first then harder.

"Wak'y mamma," he cried, "com' 'ac'..."

* * *

**July 24****th**** 1991 – 4 Privet Drive**

Harry's eyes fluttered open and he wrinkled his nose. There was a horrible smell floating into his cupboard from the kitchen, he pushed open the door and went to have a look. It came from a tub in the sink with some grey rags floating in some equally grey... water? He was hesitant to use the term with that liquid. He had a bad feeling these were going to be his in a short amount of time.

He turned to the hob and pulled out the frying pan, Dudley would want his bacon after all.

Speaking of which both Uncle Vernon and Dudley were at the table, Uncle Vernon reading the Paper and Dudley waiting to stuff his face. He heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

"Get the mail, Dudley," said Uncle Vernon from behind his paper.

"Make Harry get it."

"Get the mail, Harry."

"Make Dudley get it."

"Poke him with your Smelting stick, Dudley."

Harry dodged Dudley's Smelting stick and went to get the mail. A bill, a postcard from Marge and Letter. For him.

"Hurry up, boy!" shouted Uncle Vernon from the kitchen. "What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?"

Harry ignored the terrible joke, as he went back to the kitchen and handed Uncle Vernon his mail, before sitting down and opening his letter. He was just about to start reading when it was ripped out of his hands.

"That's mine!" said Harry, trying to snatch it back.

"Who'd be writing to you?" sneered Uncle Vernon, shaking the letter open with one hand and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn't stop there. Within seconds it was the greyish white of old porridge.

"P-P-Petunia!" he gasped. Dudley tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Vernon held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

"Vernon! Oh my goodness - Vernon!" They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Harry and Dudley were still in the room. Dudley wasn't used to being ignored. He gave his father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

"I want to read that letter," he said loudly.

"I want to read it," said Harry furiously, "It's mine!"

"Yes..." Uncle Vernon breathed out "It is... Get out."

"Pardon?" Harry replied, confused. What did he mean?

"Get out!" Uncle Vernon roared, "I won't have your freakishness under my roof!"

"What?"

"You're a wizard," Aunt Petunia spat out as Uncle Vernon picked him up by the collar and strode to the front door, "Same as your freak of a mother and father!"

"What!"

"You are no longer welcome here, Boy!" Uncle Vernon growled out, as he opened the front door and Aunt Petunia shoved his letter into his hands, before throwing him onto the path. "And never come back!"

Then they slammed the door.

* * *

**The Park**

Harry was sat on one of the swings rereading the letter. He hadn't believed it the first time.

_HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY_

_Headmaster: ALBUS DUMBLEDORE_

_(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)_

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. _

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall,_

_Deputy Headmistress_

He read through the other pages as well, he needed a lot of stuff, but more importantly,

_He was a Wizard_. Either that or the Dursleys were playing a prank to make sure he could go back. Somehow he suspected that wasn't the case. They'd always accused him of being a freak, was that his wizardry? His magic?

He had done some strange things for sure; he'd teleported onto the roof and made his hair grow back. As well as vanishing the glass in the zoo, the snake hadn't spoken to him but he had got the impression of a shrug, thinking back that was kind of impressive, and it had hissed and somehow he had understood that it was thankful to him. He didn't think that was impressive though he had always got on well with animals he just... understood them and them him.

He noticed an owl perched in a tree nearby. Unusual yes, but it did say that was how he should reply. He dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket and a stub of pencil, then wrote

_I accept,_

_Thank you_

_Harry Potter_

He held out his arm and the owl landed on him, then held out its leg. He tied the letter to it but it still looked at him patiently. He somehow knew it wanted some else,

"I'm sorry," He said softly, "I don't have any food for you." She, yes she, gave him a baleful hoot before stretching her wings and flying away.

He watched her fly out of site then walked towards the road. 'Bugger,' he thought 'I should have asked how to get their or where to get my supplies.' He continued to walk holding his letter. He stopped at the side off the road and held his letter in his right hand out in front of him again. 'What to do now...'

There was a deafening BANG and suddenly there was bus in front of him. Although, once he had gotten over his shock, he had never seen a purple triple decker bus.

Then the Conductor stepped out and addressed him,

"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. Just stick out your wand hand, step on board and we can take you anywhere you want to go. My name is Stuart Shunpike, and I will be your conductor this morning. Where do you wish to go Sir?"

"I-I don't know, I called you my accident" Harry replied, "Wait, can you take me somewhere I can get my school supplies? I don't know anything about the magical world..."

The man frowned at him, "You're a muggle-born? You should have had a member of the school staff explain everything to you."

Harry's cautious side came to the fore, it was probably best if the man didn't know he was homeless. "My parents died when I was young and my Aunt and Uncle aren't magical, but they said my parents were, and what's a Muggle?"

"A Muggle is a non-magical person, and if you were down as having magical parents that would be why none of the staff came to see you... Anyway Diagon Alley is where everyone shops so I'll drop you outside the Cauldron, that's the pub there. You got any money on you?"

"No Sir..." Harry replied despondently, his first contact with the wizarding world and he would lose it because he couldn't pay.

Stuart sighed, the kid had nothing and knew nothing either, well, it couldn't hurt once could it... "Alright lad get on, I'll let you travel for free this time, but only this time understood?"

"Yes Sir, thank you..."

* * *

**Thirty Minutes later – Outside the Leaky Cauldron**

"Thank you again Sir," Harry said as he stepped off the bus, he watched Stuart wave and the bus vanish before turning and walking into the pub. Stuart had told him a couple of things about the wizarding world, so at least he wasn't stumbling around in the dark still.

The pub was a grubby thing and the sight of someone buying a pint of ... something, whiskey possibly, reminded him he had no money, Knuts, Sickles and Galleons were what wizards used with their rather odd exchange rate. He walked over to the bar; perhaps the barman would know something...

"Ain't you a little young to be ordering from the bar lad?"

"I'm not looking for a drink, I'm looking for a job you got any going?" Harry replied, it was a long shot, he doubted a ten year old could serve alcohol.

Tom crinkled his brow in thought, since his youngest grandson had left Hogwarts last year he hadn't been able to help him out during the Summer Holidays and he was feeling a bit stretched, maybe the boy could clean or something.

"Call me Tom lad, you got any skills that could help me lad? Cooking, cleaning anything like that?"

Harry smiled, this could be promising, "I'm Harry and I can do both Tom, but I, er, need a place to stay..."

Tom frowned, 'a place to stay?' he took a step forward and looked Harry up and down, a bit skinny and his clothes were to big... "I won't ask why Harry, I figure it's none of my business, but you can bunk down in the storage room. My grandson used to use the bed in there if he was working late and couldn't get home. I can pay you fifteen Knuts an hour, is that okay?"

"Yeah," Harry smiled, "That would be great."

"Good, now get in the back and start cooking!"

* * *

**One week later**

Harry wiped his eyes, it was nine in the morning and he was looking around Diagon alley again. He had made two galleons in the last week working from ten until half two, then half three until half eight. He spent most of it cooking in the kitchen or cleaning the table and taking the empty glasses out the back where he could wash them. Tom had given him the day off seeing as it was his birthday; he was a good man but a tough boss.

He had spoken a lot about the wizarding world, things he thought a muggle raised boy ought to know, recent history, Wizengamot politics and a bit of local geography. He'd also told him about a junk shop where he'd be able to get his school books on the cheap and another that sold robes. He had checked Gringotts in the week and apparently his father had emptied the vaults in the war against Voldemort, the goblins not knowing where the money had gone. He had looked in Flourish and Blotts earlier in the week and he couldn't afford to buy new, same with his robes.

'Madam Malkins was very expensive.' He thought as he walked pass said shop, ignoring the head of blond hair in the window. 'Well,' he thought 'books and a wand first, robes later.' He manoeuvred around a giant of a man holding a package in his hand and muttering about carts before pushing open the door and going inside.

* * *

**Later on**

Harry had found the books easily enough, as well as a cauldron, even if it was a bit rusty. He was examining a set of scales, one side seemed to always be double the weight of the other (he'd been checking with Knuts), when a wand rolled out from a stained and ripped cloak. It was just over seven inches long and made of a rather light coloured wood.

Unfortunately for Harry he didn't know that the wand chooses the wizard; all he knew was that he didn't have a wand and this was the first intact one he'd seen. He shrugged; it would do, and picked it up.

There were no sparks, no rush of wind, nothing.

But then Harry didn't know anything thing was suppose to happen. He put it on top of the books in the cauldron.

This would have consequences that Harry wouldn't find out for a while yet.

* * *

**September 1****st**** 1991 – Platform Nine ¾**

Harry was looking around the Platform, waiting for some space so he could board the Hogwarts Express. He spotted several people he'd seen in the Cauldron, a large group of red-heads caught his eye, the Weasleys, possibly the only people in Hogwarts poorer than he was.

And next to them, yes, that was the Longbottoms, the Boy-Who-Lived himself.

He'd spoken to him shortly in the Cauldron and he thought he was a bit arrogant, always going on about his 'special tutoring' to the youngest Weasleys and his other friends. They seemed quite taken with him. There were a couple of photographers and reporters around, all trying to get his opinion on how his first year would go.

Harry turned away from them and pulled his trunk onto the train, ignoring the cries about a ... 'Tarantula? Really?' His trunk was old and one of the hinges was broken, he'd spotted it the second time he went to buy his stuff in august, not having enough money to buy everything the first time around. He found an empty compartment and put his stuff away inside it, before sitting down and pulling out one of his schoolbooks. The copy of The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) was a missing cover but he had also gotten Grade 2 on the cheap with it so he started reading.

He noticed a head of blonde hair strut down the corridor, Malfoy was it? He had met him and his father, and could honestly say he didn't like either of them. Both of them had looked down their noses at him while he was cleaning the tables.

He sighed and went back to the description of the levitating charm.

* * *

**Another Compartment**

Parvati sighed, she and her sister had been sitting in their compartment talking, when the door opened and a bushy haired witch asked if she could join them. They'd agreed and now her sister and this girl, Hermione her name was, were chattering away about what spells they had tried and how successful they had been. They were more alike then she and Padma were. She'd just have to treat Hermione how she treated Padma, and how Padma treated her.

Nod, and let the words wash over her.

* * *

**Later on - Harry's Compartment**

He was looking at a section on the Lumos Charm; he'd never need a torch again, when a voice echoed through the train. "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes time. Please leave your luggage on the train; it will be taken to the school separately."

He closed his book and put it back in his trunk before pulling out his robes and getting changed into them. They were second- or maybe third-hand and were slightly too big, almost dragging on the floor instead of just below the ankle, but they would have to do. Just like everything else.

When the train had finally stopped he pushed his way out and onto the small, dark platform before shivering in the cold.

"Firs' years! First' years over here!" he heard a voice booming over the crowd. He turned and pushed his way through the crowd towards the sound. "C'mon, follow me - any more firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"

The man looked familiar, but Harry pushed it out of his mind, he needed to concentrate on the path. It was narrow and bordered on both sides by darkness. Impressions of trees loomed out of the darkness and shadows of animals, darker patches in the gloom, flitted among them.

"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."

There was a loud "Oooooh!"

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black take. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Harry moved to a boat and found himself sharing with two girls, one blonde the other a redhead. "Everyone in?" shouted Hagrid, who had a boat to himself. "Right then - FORWARD!"

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

"Heads down!" yelled Hagrid as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbour, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

Hagrid checked the boats then led them up a passage way in the rock before coming out onto a large lawn before moving up to a huge oak door.

"Everyone here? Yes?"

Then Hagrid turned, raised a gigantic fist and knocked three times on the castle door.

The door swung open at once and Harry's first response to the stern faced witch stood there was that she was not someone to cross.

"The firs' years, Professor McGonagall," said Hagrid.

"Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here."

She turned and they all followed her inside. She led them to another huge door before stopping and letting them crowd around her.

"Welcome to Hogwarts."


	2. First Year, Part 1

I don't own Harry Potter. Any parts of this that resemble the books are probably from it.

* * *

**September 1****st**** 1991 - Hogwart's entrance hall**

Harry tuned the teacher out as she started talking about the houses and the sorting. When she left however he started eavesdropping on his fellow students. There was a girl reciting spells she had learned to two others, twins by the look of it. Longbottom and Weasley were arguing with Malfoy, apparently over which house was better, Gryffindor or Slytherin.

As the only person there not talking to a friend, he was the first to spot the ghosts come through the wall. That was a ... surprise for sure but he had read somewhere that there were more ghosts here than anywhere else in Britain. They were talking about someone called Peeves but then stopped when they noticed the students.

They didn't get very far however as the stern-faced Professor, McGonagall was it? returned and shooed them away before rounding up the children and leading them in.

The hall she led them into was huge, with four longer tables parallel to each other and a smaller one with the staff on it at the end. There were gold plates in front of each student and each face had turned to look at the new arrivals.

The girl from earlier was still reciting random spells before switching gears and started going on about the bewitched ceiling. Perhaps this Hogwarts, a History could be a useful read...

Then Professor McGonagall placed a four-legged stool with a ragged and dirty hat on top of it in front of them. How strange.

Then it opened its brim and started to sing.

Harry stared, 'Really,' he thought, 'A talking hat? I thought that it was strange before. Now it's ridiculous. And it's going to sort us?' He rolled his eyes, 'Great.'

When the hat finished however the hall burst into applause and whilst Harry was busy staring at them, clapping a hat? Really? He missed the first few people being sorted. The girl who wouldn't stop talking, Granger her name was, was sorted into Gryffindor, which he thought was odd, didn't the clever ones go to Ravenclaw? Longbottom was sorted there as well after a bit of a wait and Malfoy was barely touched before the hat called out Slytherin.

Then the twin girls, Patils, one to Ravenclaw and one to Gryffindor, who sat next to Granger and started talking, then a Perks, who joined them. Then him.

"Potter, Harry!"

He stepped forward and let the professor drop the hat over his eyes.

"Hmm, ridiculous hat am I?" said a voice by his ear, "You'd fit anywhere it would seem. Clever, yes, but as a means, not an end. Loyal, but not to anything and cunning, but not particularly ambitious. But courage, you've got that in spades, willing to walk alone into the unknown with your head held high, yes, better be GRYFFINDOR!"

He heard the hat shout this to the hall and took it off, then walked towards the red and gold table. They were clapping for him, which was nice, he never had anyone do that before. He sat down near the other first years and introduced himself.

"Nice to meet you all, I'm Harry Potter."

"I'm the Boy-Who-Lived, Neville Longbottom" he stated pompously, then gestured towards the others.

"Cor, are you really! I'm Seamus Finnegan and..."

"I'm Dean Thomas, it great to meet you!"

Neville smiled indulgently, "Yes and may I..."

"I'm Ron Weasley by the way" Ron interrupted, having just sat down after being sorted. Neville glared at him then continued.

Harry tuned him and started looking around. There weren't many left to be sorted and he was feeling a little peckish. Then Dumbledore stood up.

"Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

"Thank you!"

Harry stared at him. 'What the hell?'

* * *

**That Evening - Gryffindor Tower, First Year Boys' room**

As Harry was sat on his bed, the curtains drawn tight around him, he thought back to what Dumbledore had said once they had finished eating. 'The third floor corridor on the right hand side eh? And a painful death to any who go there...' He would have to have a look, after all he would definitely not be the only one doing so.

After that they had been led back to the tower but not after he had made them sing that stupid song. 'Hoggy Warty Hogwarts? Really? Although,' he thought 'It does seem to suit the senile old man.'

There had been some more encounters with Longbottom both on the way to the tower and when inside it. First he had ordered Peeves, who was a poltergeist prankster, to drop his things and leave. Unfortunately Peeves took this rather literally and nearly concussed the younger Weasley before zipping away. After that had been the argument with the beds. He had wanted a good view and to stay warm by the fire and so had ordered Dean Thomas out of his bed. Seamus and Dean by this time had been turned into complete fanboys once Longbottom had explained why he was famous and all the advanced training he had received.

Harry couldn't understand how they could be blinded so much. Did they really just see what they wanted to see? He had even dictated where the others would be sleeping. Harry however had already claimed the bed in the darkest corner, furthest from the others. Longbottom had seen him starting to unpack there and opened his mouth to order him to move, but Harry just stared at him until he said that that was where he wanted him to sleep anyway.

He yawned, and realized that if he wanted to get up in time for lessons tomorrow, he would have to go to bed now. He pulled the covers over himself and thought 'I can't wait to start casting magic...'

* * *

**September 2****nd**** 1991 – Hogwarts Corridors**

Harry was watching Longbottom strut through the corridor, his cronies, Weasley, Thomas and Finnegan following him. They really hadn't endeared themselves to him this morning.

Apparently, because he wasn't worshipping the ground he walked on, they felt it necessary to exclude him from their circle of friends, which Harry thought was a little mean. 'Ah well,' he thought, 'I guess I'll just have to look elsewhere for some friends then, won't I.'

Although he wasn't quite sure where to look. All of the second years and most of the third were just as enamoured with Longbottom as the cronies were, the muggle-borns among them quickly being told of his awesome one year old might by their friends who were familiar with his legend.

Harry snorted, 'Sounds about right, the way he talks you'd think he craps gold and pisses champagne. At this rate the only friend I'll have is Mr Filch.' He had met the caretaker on his way to breakfast and after treating him politely, and his unfitting robes catching Filch's eye as well as Mrs. Norris' apparent approval; they had spoken for a short time. He'd enquired about any jobs any Filch had said he'd see what he could find, but the evasive look in his eyes made Harry sure that none would be.

He started; apparently they were at their first class. He frowned, he really should not lose track of his surroundings so badly, the Dursleys had taught him that lessons well. He went inside and noticed Longbottom wasn't there, although for some reason there was a cat on the professor's desk. He moved to seat in the middle of the class, Granger was at the front, which didn't surprise him although the girls she had been talking to were at the back, why wasn't she sat with them?

He listened in on the conversation, what on earth did Longbottoms backside have to do with anything? He shrugged, looked like Granger wanted some more... stimulating conversation. He didn't blame her.

He jumped as the door banged open and Longbottom strutted in, followed by his cronies and took the other desks at the back. He turned back to front just in time to see the cat morph into Professor McGonagall mid-jump, 'now that was impressive.'

She smiled at Longbottom, "it's good to see you again Neville," she said, "have you been keeping up with your studies?"

His jaw dropped. 'This is our first year!' he thought furiously, 'how can he have one of the school teachers as his private tutor! That is most definitely not fair.'

"Yes Professor, I have," he replied, "I've just started the third year work, should I continue?"

"Yes Neville that would be wonderful, and if you could help out your classmates I would greatly appreciate it."

'I won't,' Harry thought grumpily, but he sighed and started listened to her explain how they were going to turn the matches in front of them into needles. He looked as his match then his wand, 'well,' he thought, 'time to see if this thing works.'

Unknown to Harry was that his wand was balsa wood, with a unicorn hair core and rather springy. Perfect for someone with very little magic or a great deal of control. Neither of these described Harry and it was for that reason that as soon as he attempted the spell, he overloaded the wand core with his magic, it would take time for the hair to recover from that.

No one noticed the small amount of smoke curling out of Harry's wand being too busy staring at the burn mark and small crater on his desk or brushing the silver dust off their robes. Harry especially was a sight as he had been the closest to the explosion and was almost completely silver over his front.

Professor McGonagall sighed, 'Obviously he hasn't inherited James' talent in transfiguration,' she thought as she vanished the dust and gave him a new match.

Harry pointed his wand at it and gulped, he hoped the same wouldn't happen again...

* * *

**An hour later**

Harry stomped out of the class in a mood. Nothing had gone well there, the rest of the lesson had been spend watching his match stay a match interspaced with the familiar explosion and covering of dust.

Granger though had proved she wasn't all talk with the Professor holding up her pointy silver match and giving her as rare smile.

Unfortunately it seem Longbottom was the same as he had easily demonstrated how it was done as well as bragging that he had been able to do so for years now. Professor McGonagall had also approved of the newer stuff he showed her, some of which he recognized from flicking through the other chapters in A Beginners Guide to Transfiguration.

He made his way into the Defence against the Dark Arts class and hoped this would go better.

* * *

**That evening**

It hadn't.

Quirrell, he refused to even think of the man as a Professor, was a stuttering incompetent, although not as incompetent as Harry was turning out to be. He had yet to cast a single spell successfully and had yet to figure out what was wrong. He understood the material fine, probably better than his classmates, save Granger of course, but nothing would work.

He'd sleep on it and maybe go to the library see what was wrong.

* * *

**September 5****th**** 1991 – Hogwart's corridors**

Nothing, it was Friday morning and he had still yet to cast a spell. Everything either failed, blew up or had some other impressively disappointing result and he still had no idea why! It was getting old, and fast too.

'At least potions should be good,' he thought, 'don't need a wand for this, do I.' He had just taken his place at his desk, he had yet to partner with anyone which was really getting annoying, when Snape strode in his cloak billowing behind him. He took the register and sneered at both Longbottom and Harry. 'Ah crap...'

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

No one said anything and Harry wasn't about to step out of the crowd now, 'this could be good...'

"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

'Or not,' he knew it was part of a potion but he couldn't remember which one, "I don't know, Sir" he replied.

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" he resented that, he had open the books and read them thoroughly, he just hadn't known it would be necessary to memorise them.

"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

That he did know, it was one of those little facts that stuck in your mind. "Stomach of a goat, Sir"

He sneered, "Lucky guess, Potter, what about this one? What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"

Wolfsbane... That was Aconite wasn't it? He didn't know what Monkshood was though. "I don't know, Sir."

"For your information, Potter, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?" There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Snape said, "And two points will be taken from Gryffindor House for your failures, Potter."

Things didn't improve for Harry after that. Snape criticised everything he did, and seemed to hold all the Slytherins on a pedestal, Malfoy above all. He was surprisingly neutral to Longbottom although that didn't make Harry feel better, and he was only too glad to abandon the classroom once the lesson was over.

'A perfectly good subject,' he raged to himself, 'Ruined by the idiocy and snobbery of a crappy teacher! I'll have to practice on my own it seems. Just like everything else.'

* * *

**September 13****th**** 1991 – Quidditch Pitch**

Harry stomped down to the pitch alone. He really wasn't enjoying life at the moment. He had still yet to cast a spell, although it seemed nothing was happening more often and the disastrous consequences less. And worse still Longbottom had noticed his constant failures and had taken to calling him _Squibby Potter_. His cronies had picked it up and it had spread to the Slytherins as well, people gave him pitying glances but none of them did anything, no one willing to step out and oppose the _heroic_ Boy-Who-Lived.

'Bastards,' Harry thought, 'And now I get to make a fool out of myself on a broom in front of everyone. Joy.' It was more than a little off putting listening to everyone brag about how good they were in the air, though Longbottom had been surprisingly quiet. At least he wasn't alone in his nerves, Granger was looked terrible and he prided himself on the fact that no one knew how scared he was. There were taunts of course, but he tried to ignore them.

Then the teacher, Madam Hooch, arrived. "Well, what are you all waiting for?" she barked. "Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, hurry up." Harry glanced down at his broom. It was old and some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles. Reminded him of himself, 'even the hair,' he thought with a chuckle.

"Stick out your right hand over your broom," called Madam Hooch at the front, "and say 'Up!"'

"UP" everyone shouted.

Harry's broom jumped into his hand at once, but it was one of the few that did. He looked around and saw that both Granger and Longbottoms were rolling around on the grass. Odd, he thought Longbottom would be good at this.

Madam Hooch then showed them how to mount the brooms without falling off the end and he took a small amount of pleasure as she corrected all those who had been bragging earlier.

"Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard," said Madam Hooch. "Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle - three - two - one – PEEP."

They had been flying around gently and Harry was rather enjoying himself, it was all rather instinctive. He spotted Malfoy, Longbottom and their cronies' dicking about but ignored them. Longbottom, however looked rather nervous and a little unsteady and wasn't flying anywhere near as well as the others, and was nearly rammed by Malfoy and slipped sideway before losing his grip and falling off his broom.

Thud! Harry winced, that had sounded painful and he was glad it wasn't him who fallen before chuckling when he realized it was Longbottom.

Madam Hooch was bending over Longbottom, both of them white faced. "Broken wrist," Harry heard her mutter. "Come on, boy - it's all right, up you get."

She turned to the rest of the class and gestured for them to land. "None of you are to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

He watched them hobble off and they had just got out of sight when Malfoy jumped back on his broom and floating up.

"Useless lump..." Harry tuned him out, all he would do was insult him and Weasley would insult him back. 'Yep,' he thought, 'there they go,' as all the others started bickering around him.

* * *

**October 18****th**** 1991- Third floor corridor**

This was it, the night he would get to see what all the fuss was about. Longbottom had bragged that he and Weasley had seen some sort of monster behind the door on the third floor. Like that was likely.

He moved quietly through the shadows until he was next to the door then reached out and tried to open it.

'Damn,' he thought, 'it's locked.' Never mind, he had prepared for this possibility. He pulled his set of lock picks out his pocket and cast a nervous gaze at the old lock in the door. He had used these to break out of his cupboard and it was just luck they had been in his pocket when the Dursleys threw him out. He wasn't sure if they would work on the lock but he shrugged, 'never know until you try.'

He knelt down in front of the door, stuck the picks in and started trying to undo the lock. There was something blocking him from moving the picks there and here was a second...

Clunk. He paused and stared at the lock. That was it? That lock on his cupboard had had 5 tumblers and this? He just had the push the latch up from inside the lock!

'Wizards,' he decided, 'lack quite a bit of common sense.' Dumbledore said that a painful death awaited any he passed this door. Surely he had other ways of locking the door? Safer ways?

He ignored the thought before moving to the side of the door and open it and inch or two. 'Huh,' he thought as he got a whiff of some kind of animal, similar to Ripper by the smell, 'seems that Longbottom was telling the truth.' He opened it a little more and peered inside.

He paused, pulled his head back and wiped his eyes before looking again. 'A three headed dog? What the hell! How does that work? Does it only have one brain spread into three different places, three different brains all controlling the body, only the central brain or some other bizarre way of functioning?'

He focussed and went inside. "Hello," he said softly, not wanted to startle the imposing creature which, by the look of the triple set of drooling taws, could probably eat him in short order. He saw the head swivel towards him and six eyes focus on him. He swallowed.

"H-hello," he stuttered out, nerves overtaking him, "a-aren't you an i-impressive creature."

The Cerberus, that was what it resembled anyway, studied him for a short while before the central head barked at him followed by its right head licking him from and ankles to face, his left head looking on in... amusement?

"Thank you for that, you don't know how much I appreciate it," he deadpanned as he wiped the drool from his face and glasses, before replacing them. "Do you mind if a have a look round?"

The central head nodded before the creature moved back, allowing him to spot the trapdoor under its bulk. He moved over to it and tried to open. Though the hinges were stiff it swung up and Harry shook his head at the lack of defence. Was the creature, currently sniffing him and looking over his shoulders, the only defence? Not even a padlock or something magical like a ward, he had read about them in his constant attempts to prove he could use magic, to keep any intruders out?

He stared into the gloom and wished he had torch he couldn't see any in there. He could however here something... somethings slithering over themselves in the dark. He nodded to himself, 'good, it isn't the only defence.' He wasn't, however willing to jump down and see what was there, given he had no way back up again, unless he stole a broom.

He closed the trapdoor and moved over to the Cerberus, where he started stroking the big dog and when it flattened its heads to the floor, scratching it behind the ear. Or perhaps clawing would be a better word given how hard he had to rub before the creature started to feel it. When it started to growl in appreciation he turned his thoughts to other things.

He had still yet to make any friends, although how much of that was due to his own rather feeble attempts or the fact the nickname Squibby had spread to the other first years, some said out of contempt, some dislike and some to fit in with the others. It had also spread to some of the second years he had been tentatively befriending and who had now had drawn away from him. He clenched his fist as he remembered that, causing the Cerberus to open an eye and whine at him before he continued. It was more original than Dudley's _Pothead _at least, and all the incessant name calling did was make him more determined to prove them wrong.

Granger seemed to be in a similar situation, as she had pulled away from Patil and Brown and was now becoming seen as a know-it-all with few friends. At least she was insulted less often than he was a she didn't seem to be holding up as well as he was and appeared to be approaching breaking point. Perhaps he could be her friend. After all she didn't have anyone else and they both enjoyed studying, but how to go about it...

* * *

**October 31****st**** 1991 – Gryffindor Tower**

Harry was currently sat on his bed, feeling sorry for himself. According to what little he knew of his parents from Petunia, today was they had died. He didn't know if he believed the story of the car crash, although vague memories he had off some kind of explosion could be a part of it. He thought there may have been a more magical solution though, given the Dursleys hatred of magic.

Everyone else was down at the feast, but tonight Harry would rather be alone in the tower rather that alone at the Gryffindor table. It was quiet and he wanted to think about what he had lost. He had done so every year since she had revealed how his family had died.

He wondered what it would have been like to have his mother loving hold him or his father put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Had he had any younger or older siblings in the car when they had died? And what were their names? Potter obviously, but Petunia had revealed 'his freakish mothers', not 'freakish sisters', no she wouldn't want to imply any relationship between herself and magic would she, name had began with an L before she had cut herself off. He had no idea about his father but it would be nice to know. Did Hogwarts have a year book or something?

He smiled to himself as he imagined his parents. Both with his messy black hair and green eyes, a handsome man and a beautiful woman, laughing and holding him and his siblings. A tear ran down his face and he rubbed it away furiously, so desperately wanting it to not be a dream. A family that would praise him and help him and _love him_. Him showing his magic to his overjoyed siblings as they chased the feather he was levitating around the room, his father and older siblings laughing and joining in, before his mother snatched all their wands and scolded them before she started repairing the cushions. Their faces never stayed the same for a moment, changing features and ages. Their hair changing colours and lengths as it whipped around their bodies. He sniffed.

No.

No.

No! He wouldn't let himself do this again! He wouldn't! Wouldn't! He raged to himself, desperately trying to hold back his tears.

He failed, and hated himself for it. He had never known them and surely, surely he could never miss them, right? Right?

He wanted to sit there and wallow in his misery but someone was pounding up the stairs and he would not let them see him weak and vulnerable. He dried his eyes and pulled out book, pretending to have been reading it.

The door slammed open and he flinched, looking up and scowling, he saw it was one of the sixth year prefects, he didn't know there name but they were infatuated with Longbottom, although they didn't look particularly pleased with him.

"Sq- I Mean, Potter, why the hell weren't you at the feast! Never mind, It's not important now, but McGonagall wants see you, she be glad you're safe," he rushed out with a sneer, looking a little winded.

Harry blinked. Something had gotten them worried, "what happened to make you so worried? Did someon-"

"A Troll got into the castle somehow," he interrupted, "and when we did a head count, we realised that both you and Granger were both missing."

That shut him up. Wait, him and Granger? He knew that Longbottom had finally tipped her over the edge and had been planning to approach her tomorrow to see if she would be his friend, having spent the last week building up enough courage to do so. Any other day but Halloween he would have done so straight away but he really hadn't been in the mood today.

"Why were you up here and not at the feast anyway Potter?" the prefect spat out, seemly annoyed at having had his time wasted.

"Personal reasons."

"What reasons?"

"Personal ones," Harry stated firmly, started to get annoyed at the prefect.

"Like?"

"Like none of your business," he ground out.

"Potter, I am a prefect! I deserve to know!"

"It's been a decade since my family died! Happy?" he spat out, wishing he knew something to hurt the bastard.

"Y-Yes, I-I mean no! I-I, um, I'll leave you be," the prefect stuttered with a wince, he had really put his foot in his mouth there.

"Yes, you do that," Harry said acerbically, whilst glaring at him.

When the prefect had shamefully closed the door Harry turned and lashed out at the wall. Banging his hands against the cold stone he tried to keep his tears back and get his anger out, but it wasn't working.

Clenching his fists he reigned his anger back in and forced his mind off the subject and onto something else. He desperately strove for a subject to hold his attention and latched onto the old problem of his magic.

He had still yet to cast a spell successfully, unless you counted the levitating charm, where he had made the feather flying into the ceiling at high speeds before exploding, rather than just exploding on his desk. He had read around the subject, hell he had read around all of them and knew all of the first year subject matter. He had read some helpful tomes in the library about pulling your magic out of your core and not relying on your wand to do it, directing your magic, visualizing what your wanted to happen and enforcing your will upon the magic that flowed. Apparently the magic wanted to flow as it had been theorized to be slightly sentient and respond to your wants, which was how accidental magic occurred.

None of this had been any help. Hell, if anything it had made it even worse! He hadn't mastered it by any stretch of the world and only had the very basics mastered to a level where he didn't have to think about it, and whilst the gap between catastrophic disasters had larger, said disasters were now even more catastrophic and appeared to be damaging his wand as well by the look of it.

Although putting that aside he had started getting odd jobs from Filch, he didn't know why but it started after the name Squibby saw more use than Potter by his year mates. Unfortunately Filch was a miser and seemed to rely on detention labour to clean things rather than pay Harry to clean. Nevertheless he had made a few sickles, nothing compared to the galleons he had earned from Tom, but he supposed it was better than nothing.

His thoughts went back to Granger as his dorm mates filed back into the room. He would talk to her tomorrow and see if they could become friends. Maybe she would be able to find a solution where he had not. It was a nice thought...

* * *

**November 23****rd**** 1991 – Third floor corridor, right hand side**

Harry had kept visiting the Cerberus since he had first found him, library visits having confirmed his suspicions as a Cerberus, a subspecies of Hellhounds. As he scratched his multiple sets off ears and let it swallow the large amount of meat he had appropriated from the tables at mealtimes, no one wanting to sit close enough to _Squibby_ to notice him slip it into a bag and then into his pockets.

The last few weeks had been underwhelming. Whilst he enjoyed flying Quidditch did nothing for him. Didn't help that he didn't particularly like anyone on the term, although as a Gryffindor he thought it was to support his house team with his house mates.

He cast his mind back to Halloween. He had found Granger alone at breakfast the day after Halloween and, once he had built up the courage, asked if she would be his friend. She had insulted him with that bloody nickname before running back to Patil and Brown, who had just entered the great hall. Stupid witch.

Something had happened to her though that night, and whilst she had yet to say anything, it was obvious from her change of behaviour that something had had a major effect. She no longer raised her hand in lessons, only speaking up if the teacher asked her a question and stayed very close to Patil and Brown or Dunbar and her group of friends if they weren't around. She didn't join their conversations and kept looking around, like she was watching for someone.

He doubted he'd me getting closer to her anytime soon and there was no one else who he could befriend, the image of Squibby Potter firmly entrenched in the minds of the first and second years and started to make its presence known in the third and forth years. It probably said a great deal about him that his best friend was a three headed dog that everyone else considered a terrifying monster.

He had found a fascination with both magical and mundane creatures and had read a great deal about them, especially the sentient ones, wondering how they would look at the world. Everything seemed to have a use, from blood to bone, skin or scale to eggs and spawn, hair to heartstring.

His musings however were shoved to a side when the door banged open and the giant of a man ducked his way under frame and into the room.

"Eh? Wha're you doin' 'ere?" he said, the surprise evident in his voice.

"I was just feeding this magnificent creature," Harry replied, sure he would get in trouble.

"Fluffy is a beaut' I'n't 'e," the giant said proudly, "I'm 'agrid by the way, 'o're you?"

"Nice to meet you Mr. Hagrid, I'm Harry Potter."

"Just 'agrid 'arry, you James and Lily Potter's boy?"

Harry felt his heart swell, James and Lily Potter, those were there names. He had searched for so long and here was a total stranger revealing that precious knowledge.

"Yeah," he choked out, his eyes filming over, "I guess I am."

"T'ey wer' good people, 'arry, you shou'd be prou' t' be t'eir son." Hagrid said as he pulled a carcass in from the corridor and started feeding another head.

"I am Hagrid, I am. Can you tell me about them?" he asked hopefully.

"Yer I can do tha'. Firs' tim' I met yer father..."

* * *

**December 25****th**** 1991 – Gryffindor tower**

Harry woke quickly in the pre-dawn gloom of the dormitory, pulled on his glasses and peered over to Finnegan's bed side. The clock perched there told him the time was six o'clock, well before the only other occupant in the room, Weasley, whose snores were reverberating around the room like a buzz saw, would pull himself out of bed.

He was momentarily jealous of the large pile of presents at the foot of his bed but that vanished when he realized there was one at the bottom of his. He could never remember having a present before. He placed it in his lap then carefully started undo the mess of tape and paper that hid the present from him. As he did so a note fell out, with Hagrid's messy handwriting on it.

'Harry,' he translated mentally, Hagrid's wrote like he spoke and was even more eligible than Harry's own chicken scratch, 'I sent owls of to all your parents old school friends, asking for photos after you said you didn't have any. I hope you like it.'

Harry's reverent gaze snapped to the thin leather-bound and he reached out with shaking hands. He opened it and there they were. His mother had red hair, and it fluttered about in the wind, whilst she held him. His father looked exactly like him, messy black hair and glasses, abroad smile across his face. He had never been so glad that wizarding photos moved, when he saw how much they cared for him by their actions. A tear fell from his eye as he looked through the rest of the book, a man named Sirius Black popping up as his father's best man and his god-father, along with another called Remus Lupin.

Hagrid had told him about them, when they were at school they were three members of the Marauders, a group of four Gryffindor pranksters, the last being the traitor, Pettigrew. He had told him how they had grown up together and then died together, in the ruins of his home.

He tore his mind away from their deaths and continued through the album, tears freely running down his face.

* * *

**Two hours later**

He gently closed the album and wrapped it in his old clothes, he did not want it damaged after all, and placed it in his trunk when Weasley started tossing and turning in bed. He quickly got dressed and went down to breakfast, thinking back to Hagrid. He would have to get the man a present for everything he had done for him.

Since that first meeting he had visited him several times, often accompanying him to feed Fluffy, or helping out in the forest. As Hagrid lived on the grounds and spent very little he was more than happy to pay Harry for helping him out in the forests. He had introduced him to the centaur herd, although Bane didn't seem to like him and Magorian was standoffish. He gotten on well with the rest of the herd and found himself very interested in their view of the world, causing Magorian to come round to him. He had beaten a quick retreat though, when one of the young fillies' attached herself to him and started talking about how the stars could show your destined one, and their braying laughter followed him out of their territory.

Hagrid had given him no end of teasing about that.

Despite that though he enjoyed being with the half-giant and counted him as his best, and possibly only, friend. He told him of his struggles with magic, and whilst Hagrid was unable to help, he had told him of his time at the castle until he had been expelled in his third year, some fifty years earlier.

This had gotten Harry worried as he really didn't want to be expelled, where would he go? Not back to the Dursleys and he couldn't stay with Tom... he had also realized that this could be a problem over the summer holidays.

Fortunately though this didn't look likely. He had read in some of the books, that Hogwarts, a History had directed him to, the as long as he didn't fail all of the end of year exams, he couldn't be forced to repeat a year and that he would have to severely break a rule to get expelled. Whilst he had yet to cast a successful spell in Charms, Transfiguration or DADA and Snape was still being a childish bully, Hagrid had told him that Snape and his father hadn't got on in their school years and Snape had transferred his hatred to Harry, theoretically he was top of the class, even if it was hard to judge where Granger was now. Astronomy, Flying, Herbology and History of Magic were all easy and he was doing very well in them but still, _that bloody nickname_ was spreading, even Snape had started using it.

Hell if the classes didn't require you to cast any spells he would be well ahead of everyone, save perhaps Longbottom. Although it did appear that the class was slowly catching him, even if he had the teachers tutoring him personally, _in lesson, _and giving only half of their attention to the rest of the class. He wished Snape would do the same, it could be mildly amusing to see him pick on someone else.

He paused as he spotted something glinting in a classroom through a half open door, 'Well,' he thought, 'I haven't got anything better to do, I might as well take a look.' He pushed his way into the room and saw that all the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, no, not all the furniture, a tall mirror, almost up to the ceiling had pride of place in the room. He ignored the inscription and moved to look into it, ignoring the misgivings he had about the feeling of being pulled forward...

He started and spun round. No, there was no one else here, but he could see his parents over his shoulders, smiling and with their hands on him. He moved closer. There were even more people behind them and some small children holding his and his parents hands. They were so familiar yet not, his family, they must have been.

"Mum..." he whispered, as if speaking would make them disappear, "Dad..."


	3. First Year, Part 2

I don't own Harry Potter. Any parts of this that resemble the books are probably from it.

A/N. Thanks to all those who reviewed. About the spelling and grammar, at GCSE I got an A* with one question wrong on my maths exam. The first one. I barely scraped a B on my English exams and yet here I am writing fanfiction. I shall try my hardest. As for the definitely/defiantly error I spent half an hour staring at it knowing it was wrong but not why. At least I didn't forget how to spell _any_ again.

To the guest who said Harry was an utter moron, I'm curious to what you mean. His only source of magical info is Hagrid, Tom and books. The first two aren't exactly wizarding geniuses and Harry doesn't exactly know what he is looking for in books. He spoke to Tom when he wasn't working, which was rare, and Hagrid is a half-giant which causes a lot of differences between him and Harry.

Felius, I did put a small sentence in on him checking the vaults in Chapter 1, but this will be expanded on later.

* * *

**January 8****th**** 1992 – Gryffindor tower**

Harry was in a foul mood. He had visited the Mirror of Erised, having idly figured out the inscription, really? Backwards? Was that the best they could do? He had spent most of his days over there during holidays and he had been livid when earlier today he had gone back and the bloody thing had vanished! He had gone to the library for the first time in weeks, noting that he hadn't been since he had first seen the mirror, normally going every few days, nor had he been to see Hagrid.

He had found out that the Mirror exerted a strong attractive force on any who had seen it making them want to come and see it again and again and _again. _Possibly until they withered away in front of it.

That annoyed him. He had yet to find what was wrong with his magic and that had cut into his time researching what was wrong. Although a small part of him, that he had been trying to crush, said that if he withered and died but got to spend all his time with the image of his parents, _would he care?_

He heard a roar, and looked out the window to where Hufflepuff were still celebrated their victory over the dejected Gryffindor Quidditch team. Whilst Gryffindor had some of the best chasers, beaters and the best keeper, they were really let down by the pathetic seventh year seeker. Despite his abysmal flying however he was still the best Gryffindor could field in that regard.

Harry had thought about trying out for the team until he was told that everyone on the teams had bought their own brooms and they were much better than the school ones. Whilst he enjoyed flying and the practice matches that occasionally formed in their flying lessons, he doubted he would be any good on the teams.

Not to mention the fact that he didn't really like the twins. They had pranked him several times and whilst he would have enjoyed them and laughed about it, no one was willing to undo the bloody things and he was leery of trying to finite himself, less he find himself missing a limb. In the end he resorted to finding his head of house, he had given him a disappointed look and had sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot when he was around. As did Professor Flitwick for some reason, although Snape seemed to take an obscene glee in it. Bastard.

Dumbledore just avoided him. He couldn't prove it, but whenever he had seen the Headmaster he had moved away from him as soon as he could, turning down corridors he knew led nowhere or back up staircases he had just came down. At least Hagrid was his friend, thinking of it, he had best visit the man, having never thanked him for the present.

* * *

**January 21****st**** 1992 – outside Hagrid's Hut**

Hagrid had been acting suspiciously lately. It had started a few weeks after he had visited the man to say thank you. Whenever he encountered him after, whilst feeding Fluffy or exploring the forest, and offering to visit him, he would come up with some bizarre reason for him not to. He had presumed Harry's reason for not visiting had been that he was overcome with emotion and wanted to deal with it privately. Harry could see that his actions could be seen like, and so decided not to correct him.

He shivered and started internally circulating his magic around his body in an attempt to keep warm, one of the useful little things he had learnt from a book on magic control in the library. Apparently it was a precursor to the warming charm, although attempting to cast that had left a melted patch of wall in the abandoned classroom he now used to practise. He had found it after hunting around the castle looking for somewhere to practise potions, seeing as Snape was worse than useless, after having nearly set his bed on fire with one impressive explosion.

He put the thoughts of his practise room out of his mind as he approached Hagrid's hut and banged on the door. It opened a couple of inches and a sliver of Hagrids face appeared, as well as a wall of heat.

"Oh 'ello 'arry," he said, eyes darting round, "do yer need somethin'?"

"No, just thought I'd visit you. Can I come in?"

"Well, now's no' very good time 'arry, don' s'pose we coul' meet a' Fluffys?" he replied nervously. There was a cracking noise behind him and he spun round, Harry taking the chance to push his way in and look around, reversing his magic flow in an attempt to cool down from the sauna he now found himself in.

His eyes were drawn to a large egg in the fireplace that Hagrid was now pulling out and placing on the table. He drew up a chair and sat down eyes never leaving it as a small claw sliced its way out.

"Hagrid," he asked, interest obvious in his voice, "what creature's egg is this?"

"Dragon, the book says I go' a Norwegian Ridgeback, rare they're."

Harry stared at it. It was beautiful in its own way, stubby wings shown the mighty pinions they would grow into, the sparks it sneezed out, the beginnings of its fiery breath. The whole creature showing the mighty beast it would grow into.

"How fast will it grow? And how large do dragons get? What about its diet? And its..."

"Don' worry 'arry the books told me everythin' I need t' know," Hagrid interrupted with a chuckle, "Glad t' see you're as enthusiastic as I am 'bout it. He'll nee' name thoug'. What 'bout Norber'?"

"How do you know he's a male? Is it the spines or the horns or the..."

"Er, I don' really know, jus' kinda guessed," Hagrid said sheepishly, flipping the dragon over in his hands, ignore the bites and scratches it was attempting to give him. "Oh. Mayb' Norber'a's a better name."

Harry snorted, that was Hagrid through and through. "May I?" he asked, reaching out to touch the newborn.

"Go fer it," he replied.

As he ran a winger over Norberta's stubby wings and felt them twitch, he once again thanked his magic for the gift he had with animals. When Hagrid attempted to do this Norberta would try to bite him, but him? It was like she was a small and adorable, albeit spiky, kitten.

* * *

**February 7****th**** 1992 **

Norberta had grown a lot during the last week, almost tripling her size. She was eating through Hagrid's chicken at an impressive rate but as she got bigger she started wanting larger sources of food and drink. Her breath was becoming a problem as well. As she hadn't got it under control accidental sneezes now shot out a small amount of flames, rather than just the sparks she had been capable of earlier. After she nearly set Harry's cloak on fire and Hagrid started regrowing his beard for the third time, he decided to do something.

He didn't have to spend long in the library before he found what he was looking for. _101 Essential Spells for a Dragon Breeder _wasn't a new publication by any means, but it did contain a flame proofing chapter. Wards and runic arrays didn't look like something Hagrid would be able to cast, not that he would be able to having his wand snapped. But Harry was fairly sure the laws said nothing about using an umbrella to cast spells, regardless of the fact it had pieces of a wand inside it.

Norberta was sat near the fire, curled up like Fang usually was, not that Fang would protest losing his spot by the fire to Norberta. A bloody coward was what Hagrid called him, but Harry thought that the boarhound was probably more sensible than Hagrid realized. Harry had the book out and was most definitely _not_ teaching Hagrid the wand movements. Or the incantations. Or why it was necessary for a man living in a wooden hut to have these.

The two of them doubted anyone would visit often enough to be suspicious of why Hagrid would offer to meet at the castle, save perhaps the Headmaster. They would be fine raising Norberta. They looked at each other and grinned when Norberta sneezed, and the curtains didn't catch fire.

* * *

**February 25****th**** 1992**

Harry ducked under Norberta's tail as she swung it through the air, the spines on it now hard enough to do some damage. It was getting harder and harder to hide her, and it was only Harry noticing that she would soon be too big to fit through the door to Hagrid's hut that stopped her being stuck inside, until she grew through the roof in an attempt to get out.

She was now just inside the forbidden forest and the two of them were trying to find a way to stop her wandering off and hurting the other creatures. They had thought about chaining her up, but had decided that was too cruel and instead erected a crude pen, as she was still too young to fly.

They were amazed that no one had noticed her, as her roars were definitely audible from the castle and her bright sheets of flame lit the occasion tree on fire. Harry had informed the centaurs of her location and they had also directed him to several herds of non-sentient animals that they were now using as her feed.

He was currently trying to refill her food and water, and whilst he had managed to put the deer carcass in her pen, she had now decided she wanted to play rough-and-tumble with him. He had rather enjoyed it when she was less than two feet long, but playing with a creature taller than Hagrid that was rather spiny and _didn't notice_ was not on his to do list. At least she had stopped trying to nuzzle his hand, those horns were sharp, for god's sake!

As he was doing this, and Hagrid was currently engrossed in reinforcing the wall of the pen that was between Norberta and the castle, he didn't notice Professor McGonagall making her way towards them, curiosity evident on her face.

"Hagrid? May I ask what you're doing here?"

Hagrid froze. "Oh, er, nothin' in particula' Professor, jus', er..." he turned and dropped the hammer on his toe.

"Gah!" they heard Harry scream and rushed over to the wall, Hagrid trying to block McGonagall's way and her trying to see peer round his bulk and over the rough wall. "Norberta!" they heard Harry shout, "What have I told you picking me up?"

They heard a muffled whimper and McGonagall pushed past Hagrid, to see Harry being hung upside down, his arms crossed and glaring at Norberta, who looked a little abashed even with his leg firmly gripped between her jaws.

"Oh!" he said, as he caught sight of his paling transfiguration teacher, "hello Professor. Can we, er, help you?"

McGonagall tried to keep her voice steady. "What is going on here...?"

* * *

**Dumbledore's office**

"...and of all the foolish, not to mention dangerous, things you two could have done, a dragon? What were you thinking?" Professor McGonagall ranted at Harry and Hagrid, both of whom were staring sheepishly at the floor. She had quickly gotten the story out of them and then dragged them off in front of the Headmaster, who was looking mildly amused at the whole thing.

"I have to say though," he commented, "you have done remarkably well hiding this from everyone. May I ask how?"

"Well Sir," Harry started, "no one was really looking and you didn't expect to see a dragon and, well, it just kind of happened..."

"Yer can't blame 'arry 'eadmaster, it's not 'is faul'. It just kinda' snowball'd from Fluffy and, I shoul' no' have tha'..."

Professor McGonagall looked appalled. "Surely you haven't taken him to see that monstrous creature have you?"

"Fluffy's a lovely creature Professor," Harry burst out, "You just haven't got to know him yet. And I found him by myself so don't blame Hagrid for that!"

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Just go," she eventually replied, "go on, back to your rooms."

Harry and Hagrid glanced at each other, shrugged and turned to leave. As he was closing the door behind himself he heard McGonagall start speaking.

"At least we don't have to worry about finding a replacement for Hagrid any time soon..."

* * *

**March 3****rd**** 1992 – Harry's practice room**

He was sat in the practice room waiting for one of the potions to finish brewing. He was practising a swelling solution, wanting to get a head start on the second year curriculum before Snape ruined it for him. He had most of the first year potions down pat and had started experimenting but when he melted the stirrer with one variation on the forgetfulness potion that _should _have decreased the time it took to brew, he decided to stop trying different recipes, knowing he could not afford to replace his equipment if something failed.

He had been waiting patiently but quickly got bored and pulled out his wand. He prudently moved away from the cauldron and started on the levitation charm. It was apparently the simplest spell, other than _Lumos_ and he didn't want to try that on his wand. He closed his eyes.

"_Wingardium Leviosa." _Nothing._ "Wingardium Leviosa." _Nothing._ "Wingardium Leviosa._" Nothing.

He so desperately wanted it took work. He pulled the magic from his core, through his body to his hands, where his wand work take it and feed it into the spell. He visualized it floating about eyelevel and willed it, wanted it so desperately to work.

What Harry hadn't noticed was that he had spilled some of the swelling solution on his hands and, after the third attempt at the charm, his wand had dropped from his slightly numb fingers. Without the wand creating a bottleneck in his magic, the feather shot up to eye level.

He opened his eyes and gaped. As he did his concentration slipped, and the feather started to drop. He reincanted the words and concentrated on keeping the feather up, not noticing his wand was still lying in his lap. His hand still pointing at the feather, he tried to gently move the feather up a little more.

It rose.

Harry could have jumped for joy and screamed to high heaven if he wasn't so engrossed in the slow circles he was making the feather go in. A slight 'POP' from one of the bubbles in his potions drew his attention and the feather fell. He stirred the potion and noted there was still a little time left to go before it was finished.

He turned his attention back to the feather, determined to repeat his first feat of magic. 'Oh, I didn't realize I had dropped my wand.' He picked it up and tried again.

"_Wingardium Leviosa." _Nothing. 'What the hell!' he thought furiously, 'I just did it!'

"_Wingardium Leviosa." _This time it worked and Harry noticed that it wasn't a feather floating at eye level, but his wand, spinning in lazy circles. He watched it clatter back to the ground and tried to work out _how this was possible._ All the books he had read had shown wand gesture and movements, not a single one said that you could do magic without it.

But, thinking back, he had never had a wand prior to Hogwarts and, although Tom had said that that had been accidental magic, perhaps it was different for him. Did you have to have a certain magical strength to use a wand? Did it come with age? After all children performed magic without them. Did that mean the headmaster had to use a staff to channel his magical might and he was also the oldest person he knew of, so that fit both theories.

Now though he good show his classmates that he wasn't a squib, his floating feather would prove that to all of them. Then they could stop calling him Squibby and he could gain some more friends!

No.

That wouldn't work, after all they had been levitating feathers for months now. He would have to catch up with... No, he had to surpass his classmates, show them that they had all been wrong about him. He could endure their taunts for a little longer. He had the theory down perfectly for everything so it was just the practical that had evaded his grasp, but not anymore.

He was worried though about the timing. It would not be long until the end of year exams, and given how long it had taken him to get this far he might not be ready for them. What if he failed?

No, it wouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter... His grades were good enough in all the theory, that it shouldn't matter how badly he did practically, he would still pass.

He heard the potion start to hiss, showing it was ready for the final ingredient. He wanted to finish with it quickly and get on with his new spell casting abilities...

* * *

**May 5****th**** 1992 – Transfiguration classroom**

With exams coming so soon all the teachers were reviewing previous subjects, with Professor McGonagall currently asking them to turn a mouse into a snuffbox. No one had noticed Harry was using his left hand to wave his wand about, and his right to direct the flow of magic out of his core, through his body, ignoring the pull his wand had on it, out and around the mouse. It was changing very slowly as Harry defined exactly how he wanted it to look.

He had practiced earlier and thought he had it, before realizing he had created it completely solid. He imagined that would probably lose him points.

After practicing for a week or so he started to show a small but constant improvement in class. It hadn't stopped the name calling, although that now seemed to be restricted to people who disliked him rather than everyone.

He was so engrossed in the transfiguration that he didn't notice Longbottom stroll up to him.

"Need a hand? Try visualizing what you want to happen, I tend to find that helps."

Harry stared, had _Longbottom _just offered him some advice? "T-thanks," he replied, maybe he wasn't such a prick...

"No problem Squibby."

Yes. Yes he was a prick. A huge one, with no limits to his prickyness. Harry glared at his back at turned to look at his transfiguration. Ouch, the rat appeared to be still alive, stuck half way with no legs. Longbottom had confirmed he was on the right track with his spells and he began reforming the image of his snuffbox.

He hadn't been too bad lately, though he kept rubbing his forehead and shooting Quirrell suspicious glances throughout his lessons. Whilst he had toned down the insulting it was still more common than Potter in his speech, although he wasn't as bad as some of the Slytherins. He was beginning to wonder if anyone other than Hagrid knew his first name.

Whilst he wasn't making much progress on the friends' front, his magic was a different matter. He could now cast all of the first year spells to an acceptable degree and was now working on speeding up the rate of casting. He wasn't sure if there was a time limit on his exam practicals and he didn't want to risk it. Harry had also been practicing how much concentration he had to put into the spells. Ideally he wanted to started the spell then let it finish itself off with a minimum of concentration. He had wanted to train until he could do it subconsciously, but he had realized that if he did and then accidently thought of something, it would happen. That was probably taking it too far.

He had been tempted to move onto the second year curriculum but decided that getting through his first year was more important. He noticed Professor McGonagall leaning over his shoulder, a small smile on her face.

"Well done Mr. Potter, it's good to see you haven't let your lack of success get you down."

* * *

**June 22****nd**** 1992 – Fluffy's corridor**

Harry had been up in the corridor since he had finished his exams. He hoped he had done okay, he knew he had on the theory, but the practical? He had run out of time on his Charms test and Snape circling his desk had not improved his confidence in potions. He had also gotten some odd looks from the professors as he had been muttering what he wanted to happen under his breath.

Fluffy was currently tearing pieces of meat from his latest meal, a cow, held between the left and right heads whilst the middle ripped chucks off it. Harry himself was perched on his back with a fork, trying to give the Cerberus a good scratching. Fluffy seemed to only notice he was being petted when Hagrid did it and knowing the half-giant's strength had prompted Harry to find a new way to scratch the beast.

As it was his position was completely invisible from the door and when he heard it open, Quirrells muttering following it, he decided to stay where he was, even as Fluffy rose from the floor and towered over the man.

"Stupid beast," he heard the man mutter, "now, what was it that oaf mentioned, Music to make it sleep?" Harry heard a muffled 'pop' before strains of classical music filled the room, Fluffy beginning to sag underneath him.

"Bloody mongrels collapsed on the trapdoor," was the next thing he heard, before he felt Fluffy's body rise and start to float backwards. Quirrell was going down the trapdoor he realised, and knowing what was down there he had to tell someone. Hagrid hadn't really been able to keep the secret that there was a philosopher's stone hidden in Hogwarts to himself, not that Hagrid could keep anything to himself.

He waited until he heard Quirrell curse about the Devil's snare, so that's what the writhing had been, before climbing down from Fluffy and hurrying over to the door. He quietly pulled it open and headed for the Headmasters office, hoping that the password hadn't changed.

It didn't take long for him to reach the office at full speed and he recited the password he had heard when he and Hagrid had been brought here.

"Lemon drops!"

Nothing happened. 'Oh hell!' Harry thought, now what was he suppose to do? He was saved however by the arrival of Professor McGonagall, who looked at him curiously and asked why he was trying to get into the Headmasters office.

"Professor Quirrells gone down the trapdoor in Fluffy's corridor, Professor," he hurriedly told her, "I think he's after the stone!"

She gave him an appraising look before responding, "You're the second student who has told me of someone going after the stone tonight, a stone they _should not know about. _Yours at least tells me who, but I am less inclined to believe you than the first person who brought this to my attention. Why should I believe you?"

"He put him to sleep with a conjured harp and jumped straight down! I swear it Professor!" he shouted out.

"On what?" she replied idly, as she continued on down the corridor, barely paying attention to him.

"Pardon?"

She sighed, "What do you swear on, Mr. Potter?"

He rolled his eyes, "My parents! The Castle! My Magic! Does it matter?" He felt strange sensation go through him, as if his magic had turned inside out. "It does, doesn't it?"

"Yes Mr. Potter it does," she said, looking rather alarmed before pulling herself together and conjured a match then holding it out to him, "Transfigure this please."

He did. "Happy now?" He snarked.

"For you? Yes. In the wider sense? Most definitely not. Now please excuse me, I have a stone to save." He watched her hurry off, calling for the paintings to get Filius, Severus and Pomona.

'What the hell just happened?'

* * *

**June 25****th**** 1992 – Great Hall**

Harry was currently sat alone at the Gryffindor table listening to some second years tell extortionate tales about Neville Longbottom and how he defeated Quirrell three nights earlier. The rumours had started out fairly believable from his point of view. The heads of house had confronted Quirrell after getting past the defences they had sat and finding Longbottom and his cronies halfway, Weasley looking rather injured and supported by Finnegan with Dean and Longbottom himself in the next room staring at a piece of paper and some potions. This had then descended into a running battle to the entrance hall where Longbottom had got the drop on Quirrell from a balcony and managed to burn straight through his body as he landed on him.

Now though, the heads of house were merely bystanders, rubbing their hands together and encouraging the Boy-Who-Lived, who was heroically duelling the fleeing thief until he defeated him, rather than the other way around. That was one of the tamest rumours.

He wouldn't have pegged Quirrell for it though, the man had hid his abilities well, and being able to duel all four heads of house was no mean feat. He stopped worrying about it as Dumbledore stood up, the babble dying away.

"Another year gone!" Dumbledore said cheerfully. "And I must trouble you with an old man's wheezing waffle before we sink our teeth into our delicious feast. What a year it has been! Hopefully your heads are all a little fuller than they were... you have the whole summer ahead to get them nice and empty before next year starts...

Now, as I understand it, the house cup here needs awarding, and the points stand thus: In fourth place, Hufflepuff, with three hundred and fifty-two; in third, Ravenclaw with four hundred and twenty-six; Gryffindor, has four hundred and sixty-two points and Slytherin, four hundred and seventy- two."

The Slytherins broke out in cheers, whilst Harry snorted, more than half of those points are from Snape.

"Yes, Yes, well done, Slytherin," said Dumbledore. "However, recent events must be taken into account."

The room went very still. The Slytherins' smiles faded a little.

"Ahem," said Dumbledore. "For great courage in the face of adversity and a willingness to do what he had to, I award Mr. Neville Longbottom, twenty points."

As the rest of Harry table burst out in cheers, ecstatic about beating Slytherin for the first time in years, he shook his head in disgust. He may not have liked the Slytherins but this was cruel, could he not have awarded the points before hand?

"Which means," Dumbledore called over the storm of applause, for even Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were celebrating the downfall of Slytherin, "we need a little change of decoration."

"Now tuck in for our last meal of the school year, before we all head home."

That struck Harry like a thunderbolt. Home. What was he going to do over the holidays?

Next chapter will be a short summer interlude before the beginning of second year.


	4. Summer Between Years One and Two

I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts of this that resemble the books are probably from it.

This chapter is only a short interlude between years one and two.

* * *

**June 25****th**** 1992 – Hogwarts Express**

Harry was currently panicking. He was going back to London on the express with nowhere to go. He had no home, only a few galleons and couldn't do magic until he returned to the castle! 'Calm down Harry,' he thought, 'there has got to be a solution.'

He could stay with Tom for a while, but he would need a reason as to why he wasn't with his family. Ah! He could say they were abroad and would not be back for a week, which would do for an excuse, even if it was a bit flimsy. That would buy him some time to find somewhere to stay, it couldn't be anything expensive. Maybe he could find a tent in the junk shop, if wizards even used tents.

First though he would need to find a way to get to the Leaky Cauldron. He had read up on something called the Floo in a book on magical transportation, which used fireplaces and green Floo powder to travel between them. He wasn't sure if Platform 9 ¾ had fireplaces. If things were desperate however he could try to recreate the teleporting he had done as a child, apparating he believed it was called.

* * *

**June 28****th**** 1992**

"Oh bugger."

Harry was currentlyin the junk shop, stuck under a pile of books. He had been trying to retrieve one called A Map of Magical Britain 1989, the most recent edition he had been able to find, when instead of the one book coming down, the whole pile did. He sighed and idly started levitating them back to place on the high shelves.

Tom had let him stay for a week, if he kept up the amount of work he had done the year before and had asked him to stay on at slightly reduced hours once he was back with his 'family'. He had yet to find a place to stay that wouldn't arouse suspicion as this was proving more difficult than he thought. He had even resorted to looking for a wizarding tent but having found out about all the charms on them realised they would be hideously expensive. He had found one in the junkshop but the charms were failing and had a habit of losing the space expansion charm on the inside, then throwing everything inside, out. Maybe he could find a muggle one.

He finished levitating the books and froze. _He had used magic outside of school. _He was going to be thrown out! Then he would have to live on the streets and scavenge for food and...

He calmed down. 'How would they know I've used magic?' he thought, 'if I don't tell them and there's no one around to dob me in, how will they know?' An evil smile came to his face, 'as long as I don't get caught I should be fine practising, I'll just have to find somewhere out of the way...'

'Well, it doesn't look like I'll find what I'm looking for here, so I'll have to find a muggle camping store.' He started to go towards the cauldron then stopped. He wouldn't be able to spend his galleons in the muggle world, they only took pounds. He turned and headed back down the alley to Gringotts, hopefully he would be able to exchange money at the bank.

It didn't take long to reach the bank and after stopping again to admire the marble exterior, he went inside and joined a queue. He had been in here before at Toms advice and been told that the main potter vault had was empty, aside from a few of his ancestors personal belongings, and that he wouldn't be able to access it until he was seventeen. He couldn't even look at the ledger to see where the money had gone! His trust vault had been set up to be a percentage of whatever had been in the main vault but since the main vault was empty so was his trust vault. If he put any money into his trust vault 95% of it would go to the main vault. He had decided to hold onto his things after hearing that.

"Next!"

Hearing the dour faced goblin call out Harry hurried over to him, knowing goblins hated having their time wasted.

"I'd like to exchange three galleons into muggle money please."

"Here's two hundred and forty pounds, Gringotts has taken a ten Sickle fee," he grunted, "Next!"

Harry moved away gaping. Ten Sickles! That was a rip off! He was glad he hadn't exchanged all his money, the greedy blighters. However he hadn't realised just how much more expensive wizarding things were than magical, he must have made a few hundred pounds from Tom and Hagrid. He moved towards the exit and the Cauldron, wondering where he could find a muggle camping store...

* * *

**Dumbledore's office**

Dumbledore was thinking. Mostly about young Neville and the prophecy but also about Harry. He couldn't get out of his mind how much he had failed the boy. He had seen him through the year and seen his threadbare clothes, lack of magic and the poor way everyone treated him.

During the war against Voldemort the Order had need money to counter that of his many wealthy supporters and the Potters had been one of the biggest contributors. James had convinced him that he would be quickly able to recoup the losses and he would have had they survived, James' Aurora work and Lily's job as a healer both paid well and it would not have taken them long to be able to live comfortably again. Unfortunately with Voldemorts fall many families were buying their way out of Azkaban and it was only through using the last of the Potter money they managed to bring so many to trial. He would hate to think what would have happened if Bellatrix Lestrange had avoided Azkaban.

It wasn't even as if he could give Harry his parents' belongings or those of Remus and Sirius. The Potters were all destroyed during the Battle of Potter Cottage, the last fight of the war and one that only he seemed to remember. Sirius's were seized by the Black family and he doubted anyone had touched them or even been in his home for a decade. Remus's had been taken by the ministry on one of their stupid anti-werewolf laws, his house sold off and his belongings destroyed.

He could give Harry his father's cloak of course, but it was one of the Hallows and did Neville need it more...

* * *

**June 29****th**** 1992**

'Crack'

Harry staggered and lent against the wall. He had forgotten how uncomfortable apparating was, but 'Oh yeah! I still got it.' He grinned to himself and peered out of the alley he was in.' Ah, there it is,' he thought before moving across the road and into the largest camping store in the UK, the sign proudly proclaiming that what had brought him here.

He walked inside as looked around for the section that sold tents. He found it and wandered over, wondering what else he would need. 'A sleeping bag, definitely and something to cook on, anything else?' he frowned as he saw the tents the store sold. Most of them were too big or too expensive, he needed one small enough to fit in his trunk when he wasn't using it but large enough to get said trunk and him inside it when it was up. Eventually he found what he was after, a bit more expensive than he would have liked but it would do. He moved over to the sleeping equipment and wondered what else he would need...

* * *

**August 4****th**** 1992 – Harry's tent**

Harry yawned as he woke. He cast a quick _tempus_ and rolled over in his sleeping bag knowing he had hours until work began. He couldn't believe how much he missed Hogwarts, or was it just the beds? No he missed all of... most of it, he hadn't been able to practise much of his magic, not having the right materials to hand but he had done all of his homework. He crawled out of his sleeping bag, wondering how quickly the second month of the holidays would go.

The first had been good and Tom had stopped questioning him about his home life. He had made plenty more money and had spent most of it down the junk shop on more books, Lockharts were _bloody_ _expensive_, although he had set a fair bit aside for a rainy day.

He zipped up his tent and apparated to Diagon Alley. He wasn't worried about anyone stealing anything given that it was set up in a forest in a remote part of the country and that a group of forest trolls had agreed to watch it for him. It was amazing how many subtle nuances a troll could make a grunt hold.

* * *

**A few hours later**

Harry was cleaning tables in preparation for the lunch time rush when he noticed a crowd of redheads bustle in, Longbottom and his parents, were they? Following behind. He watched them all sit down and start discussing their purchases. He wondered how the Weasleys would have paid for all of Lockhart's books, he knew they weren't many in the junk shop.

"Ginny," he heard Longbottoms father ask, "may I have a look at the books in your cauldron?"

The young girl nodded, looking confused as Frank started pulling all her things out.

"What are you doing Frank?" Weasleys father asked before looking bemused at the black leather book Frank had pulled out and started flicking through.

"Did you buy this for her Arthur?"

"No, did you Molly? Then who did? What is it anyway"

"Didn't you say you met Lucius in the bookshop? It's a dark artefact, I could feel the huge amount of magic pouring off it, and that seems like the kind of thing he would want to get rid of, although why he would give it to your youngest I don't know." He said as he pulled out a bag from his pocket.

"Thank god you noticed it then, I would hate to get Ginny involved with those kinds of things. Any way to get Lucius to acknowledge it," Arthur responded, a dark look on his face.

"No, we have no proof after all," Longbottoms mother interrupted, "I think he's got away with this one."

Harry turned his attention away from the adults and noticed Longbottom and Weasley doing the same.

"You hear that Ron, Malfoy's going to get away with it."

"Not if I have anything to do with it, that's my sister that could have been hurt by that thing. I think that Fred and George would be more than happy to help us return the favour to Malfoy," he replied, the smirk making its way across his face.

"Yeah, let's go tell them..."

Harry sighed, there was no way this wasn't going to worse.

* * *

**September 1****st**** 1992 – Kings Cross station**

Harry was wandering around the station heading towards Platform 9 ¾ when he noticed Longbottom, Weasley, Finnegan and Thomas running across the car park. He overhead a few snatches of conversation but ignored them, they were probably trying to get Malfoy into trouble.

"...can fly and it's got an invisibility booster build..."

"...house elf told me the school would be in danger..."

"...think he stopped us getting on the platform..."

He wondered about the last one as he strolled through the barrier, nothing seemed wrong with it to him. He pulled his trunk onto the train and wished he had mastered the Featherweight charm, his trunk had gotten quite heavy with the shrunken tent and sleeping bag in there. He walked down the corridor trying to find an empty compartment and found that the one next to the Weasley girl and another blonde haired girl with protruding eyes had no one in it. He settled down with a book on Mermish, hoping to learn a little more of the Language so he could speak to the tribe that lived in the deeps of the black lake, and wondered how Longbottom and his cronies would get to Hogwarts.


	5. Second Year, Part 1

I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts of this that resemble the books are probably from it.

Thanks for all the positive reviews.

* * *

**September 1****st**** 1992 – Great Hall**

Harry was watching the sorting with a critical eye. He had noticed that the muggle-borns seemed to stand alone whilst the half-bloods and pure-bloods stood together in their friendship groups. It was a bit unfair on the muggle-borns or those who hadn't grown up with wizards or witches their own age as they would have to join in on the others conversations and hope they would accept them.

He wasn't the only person startled when Longbottom and his cronies were led into the castle by a grim faced Snape. He had noticed they weren't at the feast but didn't think it was anything important, now however the four of them were bragging to everyone about how they had flown a _car_ to Hogwarts and into the Whomping willow. Hagrid had warned Harry to stay away from the tree as it was apparently rather violent and would like nothing better than to smack something.

As Dumbledore finished his speech and the prefects led the first years off to their respective common rooms Harry wondered how Longbottom could have gotten away with flying a car to Hogwarts. They had bragged about following the Express, but Kings Cross was in the centre of London, someone must have seen them. The ministry would have quite a job to cover that one up.

* * *

**September 2****nd**** 1992**

Harry woke early, still accustomed to waking up to go to work. He decided to go down to the Whomping willow and see how much damage Longbottom had done to the tree. It had been hit by a car and he doubted it hadn't struck back. This was indeed the case and Professor Sprout and Hagrid were currently patching the tree up, strangely the tree was still, he had only seen it moving around even without the slightest of breezes. He wandered over, idly noting the splints and slings, was it that similar to a creature?

"Need a hand Hagrid?"

"Nah I'm fine 'arry, but thanks for the though'. Shouldn't you be a' breakfas'?"

"Hasn't started yet. What happened to the tree? Did Longbottom really ram it? The damage looks more severe than that."

"Yea' the car 'e used drove itself in'o the fores'. The tree caugh' hold of it and smacke' it a few times," he replied, taking the last of the roll of bandages from the Professor.

"Huh, I'll have to go have a look for it in there."

"You will do no such thing Mr. Potter!" Professor Sprout interjected, "you could get hurt, the forest is full of dangerous creatures like the Cerberus from last year..."

"Fluffy likes me quite well," he responded.

"...Trolls..." she continued,

"I've met most of them and I've learnt the language now,"

"They're rea'ly jus' misun'erstoo'," Hagrid added.

"...and Centaurs." She finished, a slight glare on her face.

"Ah. I know where they live I can avoid Calypso. The others are fine."

"Calypso? Who's that? Never mind, it's too dangerous for a student." She sighed, "It's not going to stop you is it?"

"No it's not. Oh and Calypso is a Centaur," he replied.

"Wit' a crush on yer," Hagrid added with a chuckle.

Harry blushed and Professor Sprout joined in on the laughter, the subject leaving her mind.

It didn't take long for them to put the ladder and bandages away and walk to the Great Hall. Whilst the Professor and Hagrid took their places at the staff table Harry sat at the end of the Gryffindor table and started putting food on his plate. He wondered if any of the second years would speak to him but as they came as a nervous bunch he decided it was unlikely.

He was just finishing the last of his pumpkin juice when the morning post arrived, a bright red envelope standing out from among them. The owl carrying it swooped low over the Gryffindor table before landing rather badly in Finnegan's breakfast. He stared at it and wondered why it was bright red and why everyone was staring at it like it was going to explode. Seconds later it did explode and the entire hall heard Mrs. Weasleys voice, magnified so that the very stones reverberated with every word, screech out.

Harry desperately tried to ignore the ear-shattering voice and looking round the table saw he was not the only one. The twins looked as if they had never known a Mrs. Weasley whilst their sister was bright red and slowly sinking below the table. The tirade finally ended and many people uncovered their ears in time to hear the second howler go off in front of Longbottom, no one having noticed it arrive. Longbottom opened it quickly and his voiced boomed out through the hall, thankfully at a lower level than Mrs. Weasleys.

"I'M DISAPPOINTED IN YOU NEVILLE, WE'LL TALK MORE OF THIS IN THE HOLIDAYS..."

The babble started up again, this time focussed more on Longbottom and his father than the Weasleys. Harry turned at a tap on his shoulder and then took his timetable when Professor McGonagall handed it to him. Double Herbology with the Hullfepuffs, could be worse. It didn't take them long to get down to the greenhouses and when Lockhart pulled Longbottom to side after explaining his Herbology skills, Harry went to speak with Professor Sprout.

"What was he on about Professor, you and Hagrid had already finished doctoring the Whomping Willow?"

"We had," she replied, a disgruntled look on her face, "but Gilderoy insisted he look over our work, didn't go with twenty metres of the tree of course."

"You don't like him Professor?"

"I could never badmouth another teacher in front of a student, he'll do that himself soon enough, if you understand."

"Oh," Harry replied, hoping Lockhart was at least better than Quirrell, "Joy."

* * *

**DADA Classroom**

Harry stared at the test Lockhart had just given out, he had read all the books and noticed some inconsistencies. Most of the books were just Lockhart waffling on about how attractive he was and how charming he was and so on. There was the occasional bit of helpful spell work but Harry had yet to get any of them to work.

But the test covered nothing like that. He hadn't even tried to remember Lockhart's favourite colour or secret ambition, which just wasn't useful information and his birthday and ideal gift? Was he trying to get the class to buy something for him?

He put down a few random answers then started watching the rest of the class. Granger was scribbling away with a star struck look on her face, similar to most of the other girls, whilst the boys seemed to have taken Harrys approach and were ignoring the useless thing. Even Longbottom, who was seemingly friendly with the Professor, was staring at him with dislike as he swept round the classroom showing off his teeth.

He started paying attention again when Lockhart started hyping up the creatures he had in the covered cage he had just removed from under his desk. Maybe the man wasn't such an idiot and would actually teach them about the dangerous creatures on the syllabus...

"Freshly caught Cornish Pixies!" Lockhart said dramatically.

Or not. Harry stared down at his bag wishing he had brought one of his other books on DADA. He had almost finished the second year section in The Dark Forces: A Guide To Self Protection and had found some dog-eared books that contained other spells he was learning.

He turned his attention back to the class just in time to see Lockhart set loose the Pixies. He smirked when the man lost his wand but that turned into a grimace as he watched him abandon his students. It didn't take long for the classroom to devolve into a battlefield, most of the students choosing to abandon the classroom when the bell rang. Harry though was having way to much fun trying to hit the pixies to stop now.

He spotted two coming towards him at once and with a swipe of his hand, his wand being held merely for appearances sake, a burst of red light fanned out hitting both pixies across the chest. Harry stared, he didn't thing that was possible unless the spell was a cutting curse of something similar. He turned his attention back to the Pixies, idly levitating the fallen ones into the cage, whilst casting _Flipendo_ on the last few to throw them into the walls.

He had rather enjoyed that, the Pixies being a hard target to hit and forcing him to use a large variety of spells. He had noted that most of them were taken out by being thrown into the walls of the classroom and realised that the environment was one of the most useful things in his fight, not only the walls but also various bits of debris around the class he had levitated into the Pixies. He wondered if there were any books on common sense tips for duels in the library...

* * *

**October 4****th**** 1992 – Forbidden Forest**

Harry was currently picking his way through the undergrowth in the forest. He had yet to explore the true depths of the forest and was now taking the time to do so. Having been told that the troll from last year was one of the mountain tribes that lived in the forest, along with several forest tribes Harry was determined to seek them out and befriend them. They didn't take long to find, trolls leaving very distinct signs of habitation, and Harry was quite impressed with the size of the tribe. He grunted out a greeting to one and then wandered into the camp, the troll trying to work out what was going on.

An hour or so later Harry left the camp having made a few friends, the chieftain finding him rather amusing. Not that it was hard to amuse a troll. He started walking into another part of the forest, thinking about the school.

Lockhart had proved to be an incompetent teacher and kept trying to cosy up to Longbottom who was having none of it, having been heard asking Professor McGonagall if he could drop the class and work on his third years studies in private. Harry had been doing the same and was now over half way complete in all of his second year subjects. He had also branched out into other areas having found books on why potion ingredients react, what wand movements actually do and how you should never duel, only fight. The author of the last one had felt that the duel was too structured and that in a fight none of those rules would be there, so you should use any and all spells at your disposal to ensure victory.

He had been so engrossed in his thoughts he barely noticed the herd of Hippogryphs that he had wandered into sight of. Realising the proud and dangerous creatures could take that as an affront to them he bowed deeply and, keeping eye contact, spoke.

"I am sorry to have disturbed you, may I stay?"

One of the Hippogryphs appeared to be the head of the herd and he bowed his front legs to Harry although he kept a wary eye on him. The creature had a beautiful brown coat flecked with silver and appeared to be the eldest member of the herd, standing half a foot taller than any of the others. Harry reached out and ran his hand down the back of his neck and across his wings. He seemed to like that.

"You're a magnificent creature aren't you, so proud and strong."

He got the impression of that he was staring at him as if he was stated the obvious which he supposed he was. He turned his attention to something nudging his thigh and smiled. This Hippogryph was obviously a young one, barely coming up to his waist and some of her feathers were still a little downy. He ran a hand over her beak and neck after looking at the elder and receiving a nod. She was quite powerful though as he felt her nuzzle his hand and he chuckled to himself as she spread he wings and reared up on her back legs trying to impress him.

It wasn't long before the entire herd was crowded round him, nudging him with their heads and demanding to be petted. Some were male and some female, of all heights and ages and each wanted their feathers stroked. Harry wished he had several more hands as one appeared to be getting impatient.

It had been about half an hour before Harry realised he was supposed to be getting back to the castle for his transfiguration class and as he started saying his goodbyes to the herd and began pushing his way out of the circle that surrounded him the elder nudged him before trotting away and spreading his wings.

"You want to give me a ride to the castle?" Harry asked, somewhat amazed. The Hippogryph stared at him like it was obvious before opening his beak and screeching.

"okay, okay I'm coming. Thanks for this by the way. Now where do I hol-argh, slow down...!"

* * *

**October 31****st**** 1992 – Gryffindor Tower**

Harry was sat on his bed in the tower, his photo album open in his lap. He had chosen to stay in his rooms rather than go to the Halloween feast, wanting to be alone for a bit. He gently traced the pictures of his parents, wishing he could have known them. He chuckled to himself, this time last year he had broken down and didn't even know their names but now he knew so much about them.

Half an hour later he was still staring at the photos, when he heard someone running up the stairs. He put them away just as the 7th year prefect burst in, panting for breath.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"We think there has been an attack. Neville and Malfoy are hurt and we had to see if anyone else was injured. Why weren't you at the feast Squibby?" he replied, once he had gotten his breath back.

"Personal reasons," why the hell was he calling him Squibby?

"What reasons?"

"Personal ones," Harry rolled his eyes, this seemed familiar...

"Like?"

"Didn't we have this conversation last year?"

"... I'll leave you to it..."

Harry watched as he closed the door behind him. Some kind of attack eh? He would have to find out what happened in the morning, but in the mean time why the hell was he still being called Squibby? He was better in theory than anyone, save Granger perhaps, and he was only beaten in the practical by Longbottom, who was on third and fourth year material! He turned over to go to sleep and stew on his nickname. 'I'm stronger than any of them...'

* * *

**November 1****st**** 1992 – the Black Lake**

Harry currently had his head stuck in the lake speaking to some of the Merpeople swimming just below the surface. They were fairly friendly and having gotten a grasp over their rather screechy language was now having a rather amusing conversation over whether Bach was better than Beethoven, he had no idea they liked music so much or where they had found out about the two composers.

Having promised to bring them some music next time he visited, he pulled his head out and started to wander to Hagrids drying his hair with a towel he had appropriated from the showers. It had been quickly replaced and was currently on Harrys to do list of things to investigate.

He had found out, along with the rest of the school, that Longbottom and Malfoy had started to duel outside one of the girls bathrooms, having bumped into each other there, and had managed to cause quite a bit of damage to both their surroundings and opponent. They had been found unconscious by a ghost who had informed the Headmaster and he had taken the pair of them to the hospital wing to recover. Both were now bragging that they had easily defeated the other, but not in the others hearing where they would simply glare at each other.

It wasn't going to end there, he thought as he knocked on Hagrids door, as both were staying with their friends and when it happened again, which he expected it would, it would be worse. He stepped inside as Hagrid opened the door and was surprised to see they weren't alone.

"'Ello 'arry, you 'aven't met Ginny and Luna yet 'ave yer?" Hagrid asked as he started brewing some tea.

"No," Harry replied, "It's a pleasure to meet you both."

"'arry was who I was tellin' yer abou', we raised Norber'a together di'n't we."

"Nice to meet you Harry, is there a reason for your infestation of Wrackspurts?" the blonde one asked, a slightly far away look in her eyes.

"Luna!" the other hissed, she must have been Ginny and, given her hair colour and freckles, probably a Weasley.

"Did your really raise a dragon with Hagrid? I would have rather raised a Snorkack myself but..." Harry let the conversation wash over him. He didn't have a clue what Luna was on about but it was nice speaking to people his own age.

* * *

**November 28****th**** 1992 – Forbidden Forest**

Harry was currently picking his way through the forest trying to find the Acromantula colony. Hagrid had let slip roughly where they were and Harry was determined to find and meet these creatures. It was better than being stuck in the castle since Malfoy and Longbottom had gotten into another fight, this one including their cronies. Both Crabbe and Goyle were in the Infirmary with Malfoy and although Longbottom got off fairly unscathed it was not the case for Weasley, Finnegan and Thomas.

A lot of the Slytherins and Gryffindors were glaring at each other, although not openly as the professors were coming down like a ton of bricks on any who did, and he was fairly sure it would escalate again.

They seemed to have started fighting after the Gryffindor/Slytherin Quidditch match which Slytherin had won, although with a third year in seeker position for Gryffindor and Malfoy doing the same for Slytherin it hadn't been as bad a defeat as usual. Malfoy had apparently tried to rub in his victory and his team better brooms, which had been provided by his father, but someone had thrown a curse and then all seven of them were throwing curses about.

He shook his head as he climbed over a fallen tree, did any of them have a sense of self-preservation? It would appear not, but then he was planning on walking into an Acromantula nest so perhaps he shouldn't talk.

He suddenly felt himself lifted off the ground by the back of his collar and saw legs flashing at the edges of his vision as they propelled him and the creature carrying him forward. It wasn't long before they arrived in a huge clearing and, surrounded on all sides by Acromantula, was dropped unceremoniously in the centre before the one who had carried him clacked out for Aragog.

The spider that slowly pulled itself into vision was old, greying hair covering his body and blind white eyes looking out on nothing.

"What is it?" he clicked out through his pincers.

"Man," came the reply.

"Is it Hagrid?"

"No. Stranger."

"Kill him," Aragog said, "I was sleeping..."

"I'm a friend of Hagrid," Harry interjected, "and I don't think he would appreciate you eating me."

"Hagrid has earned our respect with his strength and would never send someone to us who was too weak to earn our respect themselves, Listener."

"How can I earn your respect and why did you call me Listener?" Harry asked as he shifted nervously, some of those spiders seemed to be moving closer.

"A Listener is one with the power to understand all creatures, and you are the first I have met," Aragog replied, "as for our respect, you will have to fight us for it. Kill him."

"Ah hell." Harry yelled before throwing a hand out towards some approaching spiders. "_Incendio_!" he turned and sent out a cutting curse followed by a series of knockback jinxes from his other hand. He quickly split his attention and sent out several transfigured hounds before charming the trees to attack any who came near them. 'I wonder if that's what happened to the willow?'

Seeing a slight gap in the approaching hoard Harry charged towards it, twin bursts of fire erupting from his hands to consume the spiders on either side of the one he was charging at. He dealt with that one with an overpowered piercing curse and, whilst the walls of flame held back the horde, escaped through the corridor between them.

Aragog looked out of his cave at the destruction that had been wrought, and wondered how long it would take the young Listener to return...

* * *

**December 20****th**** 1992 – DADA classroom**

Harry was currently staring around the classroom, wondering if Lockhart would notice how much of the class was missing. He was the only boy in the class and aside from Granger, also the only Gryffindor. Longbottom and Malfoy had gotten into another fight and this one had not only dragged in their cronies but also most of their year mates and some from first and third years. The Infirmary and Madame Pomfrey were quite overwhelmed by the number of people there and quite a few of them could be there over Christmas.

It had started on the day of Lockhart's duelling club. Harry would probably not have gone if it weren't for the fight against the Acromantula but he had hoped he might be able to pick up some tips. However when Lockhart and Snape walked in he realised he would learn nothing. Snape then called him Squibby in front of _everyone _and said he would screw up any spell. That had left him fuming but when Longbottom and Malfoy were chosen instead he wondered if they wanted two students deaths on their hands.

They had then would out that the bastion of the light, the heroic Boy-Who-Lived was a Parselmouth. That had rattled everyone and although the Gryffindors attempted to ignore the fact Malfoy wasn't willing to let it go and that had led to the fight. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were attempting to stay out of it but a few had joined the Gryffindors when they found out that the Slytherins weren't too careful about who they cursed.

And that led to his current predicament. The Gryffindor/Slytherin DADA lesson contained him, Granger, Greengrass and Davies, not bad for what was originally a class of twenty.


	6. Second Year, Part 2

I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts that look like they are from the books probably are.

* * *

**January 3****rd**** 1992**

Harry was reading a copy of Hogwarts: a History that he had gotten from the library and had found out about how the castle was kept clean. Apparently the wizarding world owned a species called House-Elves as slaves and they kept everything clean and did all the odd jobs that were needed. Hogwarts had the largest collection of House-Elves in Britain, most of them working in the kitchens to provide food for the students and staff with the rest being cleaning staff, although a few of the faculty had personal Elves to attend to their needs.

He had searched quite a few books on the subject and had found that House-Elves needed a master and that they drew their strength and indeed life through this bond with a master. What he hadn't found was where the House-Elves lived. If they knew as much about the castle as he thought they would they could be valuable people to know.

Perhaps if he was less specific and just looked for the kitchens... Yes, there it was, on the floor below the great hall behind a portrait of a bowl of fruit. How appropriate, not that any of the students at Hogwarts actually ate any of the fruit however. He noted down the location and checked the time. He should be able to make it down and back in time for curfew. He set off.

A few minutes later harry was staring at the painting the book had mentioned and wondering how he had forgotten to find out how to open the portrait. 'Well,' he thought, 'It can't do any harm to knock, can it?' He did so and a few seconds later a small creature with long droopy ears stuck its head out of the gap between the portrait and wall.

"Yes Sirs, can Mipsy helps yous?"

"Can I come in? I'd like to meet you and have a look around the kitchens," Harry replied.

"Oh nos Sirs, only peoples who tickles the pear can come in Sirs, Mipsy's sorry Sirs," she said, pulling her ears and then the portrait shut.

Harry stared. Was that an attempt at subtly from an Elf? He shook his head and realised that she probably hadn't known that she had told him how to get in. If all House-Elves were like this Mipsy then it would probably be a good idea not to trust them with any secrets less they reveal them accidently. Still there was no reason not to try her advice right? He reached out and tickled the pear, listened to it giggle and watched the door open.

He stepped inside and momentarily paused at the sheer amount of Elves running around the room. They were all carrying something whether it was food or cleaning supplies and were running around the room at house speed.

"Hello," he spoke to the room at large, "I'm Harry, it's nice to meet you all." They all turned to stare at him large eyes going even wider, it was mildly disconcerted. And then they pounced.

"Master Harry Sir is such a kind wizard!"

"Ouch..." Harry winced, from under the large pile of Elves that had all jumped on him.

* * *

**January 18****th**** 1993 – Forbidden Forest**

Harry was currently perched in a tree in the forbidden forest, watching as one of Aragogs many children crawled across the ground beneath him. He was spending more time in the forest now since the fights in the castle had devolved into random curses. For some reason the Slytherins thought he would be an easy target and kept trying to curse him. Whilst he was able to defend himself from most of them, a couple of sixth and seventh years from a variety of houses had managed to get the drop on him and get a curse off. He wasn't sure what annoyed him more, the fact they managed to curse him, that they surprised him or that so many people tried.

He waited until the spider was beneath him before launching a piercing curse through it and moving on. It thrashed for a bit but the large hole through its body was more than enough to kill it. He kept an eye on it just in case any others came along to investigate the corpse but none did and soon he was out of sight. He had been doing this repeatedly since the beginning of term and had decided that now was the time to see if Aragog had gotten the message.

'I'll teach Aragog not to attack me,' he thought, as he summoned himself to the next tree, 'and take out a couple more of his children on the way.' It didn't take long to get to the clearing where he had first met Aragog by summoning himself from tree to tree and the few spiders that he came near suffered a quick death, either by piercing or severing curses, none of them seeing him in the upper branches.

He spotted Aragog and a couple of other spiders talking to each other and cast an _Incendio _on the tree next to him before circling round as the spiders tried to put it out, none wondering why a tree had suddenly burst into flame. He dropped to the ground and carefully made his way over to the blind Acromantula.

"Hagrid?" he heard the spider ask, "Is that you?"

"No."

"Ah, young Listener, I wondered how long it would take you to return. I take it you are responsible for the fire and the death and my children?"

"Yes," Harry replied, "have I earned your respect yet?"

"Indeed you have, but do not think we will stop trying to kill you, it is just our way. Already the spiderlings are being warned of you and to stay clear of you, although not as much as our ancestral enemy in the castle..." Aragog shuddered and clacked his mandibles together, his unease showing, "but we shall not speak of _that, _instead I will ask why you have returned?"

"You attacked me and I don't doubt that you would do the same to any who wandered into your webs, so a few less of you isn't going to hurt. And what's this ancestral enemy you mentioned?"

"We do not speak of it! No spider shall!" Aragog shouted as he lunged towards him, followed by a few of the other spiders. Harry dived out of the way, severing and piercing curse springing from his wand. He turned to create a wall of fire to hold them off while he ran in the opposite direction. At least that was the plan. It was slightly stymied by the horde of spiders that came over the ridge and scuttled towards him, and deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Harry legged it.

Over fallen trees and through spiked bushes Harry kept running as one by one the spiders dropped out of the chase. The last one however was still gaining on Harry as he started to tire and metre by metre it got closer. It wasn't in particularly good health though, part of it had been set on fire and the hole through its abdomen meant that it was going to die soon and wanted to take Harry with it.

It dove toward Harry, mandibles wide, who had just fallen over an exposed tree root. Harry threw his hands up to try and protect himself, any thought of casting a spell gone for his lack of concentration.

It never came.

He lowered his hands and stared at the corpse in front of him, an arrow protruding from its head. He laughed. He laughed long and hard, a laugh of man who had been sure he would die, only to be pulled back from the brink once more, a man whose sanity was not entirely secure.

He turned and saw a young centaur staring at him. She had light grey hair in colour and was holding a bow whilst staring at Harry with a mixture of looks on her face. He groaned, whilst he was glad to have been saved, why did it have to be _her?_

"Thanks Calypso, I was-"

"Are you okay Harry? You don't look it." She interrupted frantically, "you did look impressive fighting those spiders though. You looked..."

Calypso was a good friend, in small doses but Harry didn't want to take their relationship further. It was ... a lifestyle choice... Harry tuned her out and set about seeing if he was okay. He was low on magic, but that was to be expected given the amount of spells he had used. He had sprained his ankle during the run and that shouldn't take long to heal, so all in all he hadn't come off to badly. It didn't mean he was going to let up on the Acromantulas but he wasn't going to go see Aragog any time soon.

"I need to get back to the castle," Harry interrupted, "I'll see you another time Calypso."

"I could give you a ride back..." Calypso suggested, licking her lips as she did so.

Harry facepalmed. He should have seen that coming.

* * *

**February 14****th**** 1993 – Library**

Harry had been looking at the materials for his electives next year, not wanting to be in public with Lockhart's ridiculous Valentine's Day celebrations going on. Muggle studies and Divination were definitely out, but when he had come across the section for Acromantula in one of the old Care of Magical Creatures books, he had remembered what Aragog had said about the creature they fear above all else and was currently looking for more books to see if he could work out what this creature could be.

'Species of Magical and Non-Magical Arachnids and Insects found in the Greater British Isles, too vague. Adventures with Acromantula by Gilderoy Lockhart, like that would contain anything useful. Breeding and Raising XXXXX Class Creatures, is that Hagrids handwriting in the margins? Probably the most useful though, Hagrid tends to know what he's doing.'

'Now let's see... Acromantula, Chapter 2. Diet, no. Ah ha, Natural Predators. Acromantula have very few natural predators save each other but as a species have a fear of Basilisks, possibly due to the fact that their many eyes and lack of eyelids would make them highly susceptible to its killing gaze. This is a trait shared with both magical and non-magical spiders, although non-magical spiders can live in close proximity to a hibernating Basilisk with no ill effects, where Acromantula can feel its presence from nearly a mile away.'

'Hmm... Let's see if we can find the chapter on Basilisks, here we go. The Basilisk is known as the king of snakes..., males have a red crest on the head whereas females do not..., not believed to die of old age and grow at a constant rate..., gaze can kill and their venom is the most poisonous known to man...'

'No wonder spiders are afraid of them, they sound bloody dangerous! ...I hope Hagrid doesn't try and raise one.'

He put the book back on the shelf and wandered out of the library. Aragog had said their ancestral enemy was in the castle, which was probably why their nest was so deep in the forest, but he knew there were spiders in the castle so it must be hibernating. That was not a pleasant thought, as Hagrid had told him that he raised Aragog when he was a student and that was decades ago. He wasn't sure how quickly Basilisks grew but it would be at least a few metres long by now.

He pulled a blank piece of parchment towards him and roughly sketched out the castle and grounds. He knew where Aragog's colony was as it would be at least a mile from the castle, except that it wasn't. It was less than half that and the only thing that he could tell was over a mile away from the colony was the Black lake and he didn't think Basilisks were an aquatic species, so under the black lake? He would have to have a look.

He put the books back and started heading towards the dungeons. Most of them were cold and damp and some were really cold and damp so maybe there would be a passage way below the lake from there.

He ignored the calls of Squibby and the taunts of his fellow students. None would cast any spells at him, save some of the more stupid of his house mates, for fear of setting off another mass duel. Tensions had been high since most of the lower years had attacked each other and they were only getting higher with many of the upper years from Gryffindor and Slytherin, as well as a few Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws eyeing each other with dislike and their hands hovering over their wands.

He still couldn't believe they were calling him Squibby. He was catching Longbottom up quickly with his spellwork and now that Granger had befriended some of her dorm mates, she was coming out of the shell she had been in for the last year and a half and started answering questions again and he had found that he knew all the stuff she was saying and more.

Had he really made that bad an impression at the beginning of his first year? He had been bad, terrible even at spells but he wasn't now. Now he was the second best in the year and he hadn't been given tutoring for years prior to coming to Hogwarts.

He sighed and looked round. He was in a deserted part of the dungeons and looked at the map he had made. North was that way so the black lake should be this way...

* * *

**An hour later**

Nothing. He had gotten as close as he could to the lake and he knew there were rooms behind these walls he couldn't get to them. Having seen a few Slytherins hurrying through the corridors he guessed it might be their common room and dorms behind the walls. That there could be a Basilisk beyond where the Slytherin common room could be was a coincidence not lost on him. Surmising that he wouldn't be finding the Basilisk down here he turned and headed to the surface. He decided to have a look outside, it wasn't as if there would be a way out for the basilisk in the school, no one would be stupid enough to let a basilisk out in a school and the creature would have to feed, so an entrance in the forest? That would be the most likely.

It didn't take long to reach the forest, not with all the secret passages he had found working for Filch in first year, although the man seemed to dislike him now, probably because he was a squib and Harry had proved that he was not, even if the name had stuck. Hagrid didn't really like the man and had let that bit of information drop fairly lightly.

He decided to start looking in a bit of the forest he hadn't been in before, probably because most animals ignored it. That was a fairly large clue that something interesting was here and after levitating a large pile of rocks out of the way he found a large door in a wall at the bottom of a hollow, embossed with images of snakes writhing over it. It was a very impressive doorway that was unfortunately ruined by the fact it had been bent and dented by the rocks and was hanging off of its hinges.

He pushed it open and winced at the sound as the last hinge gave way and it hit the floor, the sound reverberating down what appeared to be a large pipe. He raised his hand and cast _Lumos, _holding the glowing ball of light aloft, illuminating the damp and moss covered pipe. A great deal of it near the entrance appeared to have been destroyed, had there been a battle of some sorts there? As he went deeper into the pipe it appeared to get cleaner and smoother, the massive gouges in the walls disappeared and he eventually came out in a large room, again filled with snake images.

It was then that he heard the slithering. Wasn't the Basilisk supposed to be hibernating? Although with the racket he had made knocking the door down perhaps he should have been surprised, he doubted anything could sleep through that kind of noise. He paused and realised that perhaps searching out a basilisk on his own had been a slightly foolish idea. Too late now though.

He took a deep breath and metaphorically dived into the deep end.

"Hello! Is there a Basilisk in here?"

Ah. The slithering was getting louder now. Shit. He closed his eyes tight and addressed the room as he felt the snake move into it.

"I found the passageway out to the forest after being told there was a hibernating basilisk here, I'm sorry I woke you and I'm sure you can hunt so prey down outside, please don't eat me!" the words flew from his lips and his speech became more and more rushed.

The slithering restarted and he could hear it getting louder and louder. This had been a really bad idea he thought, he had spent too much time with Hagrid, picked up his way of thinking and now he was going to die because of it. Impressive way to go though, eaten by a Basilisk.

He could feel it coming closer and closer, so close that he thought he could reach out and touch its scales or, given the direction his thoughts were running, its huge fangs dripping with the most potent venom known to wizardkind and hundreds of them in its gaping maw, each there to rip and tear at his flesh...

After a few more moments of morbid thoughts he realised that he _wasn't_ being devoured by the King of Serpents. The sound of the snake moving though was still continuing, but, around him? He hesitantly cracked open one of his scrunched up eyes and noticed that the opposite wall was closer than before. Much closer. And, it was moving?

He opened both eyes and looked around. Then it hit him. That wasn't the wall, at least not a brick on, it was a wall of gleaming emerald scales reaching up to the top off the pipe and along it for a great distance.

'Bloody Hell!' he thought, 'it's fucking huge, it must be ancient! And they kept this monster in a school! Right next to the Slytherin common rooms, who knows how many of them could have been killed by this monster of a serpent if someone had released it. Oh shit, I just did.'

His mind was working overtime connecting the dots and realising just how deep the shit he was in was he knew that this was going to have huge consequences if anyone found out. In his head though various pieces of information had been brought together. Hidden Rooms. Ancient Monster. Slytherin. His mind brought Hogwarts, A History to the fore and flicked too the page on the secrets of the founders.

"Oh bloody fucking hell I just opened the Chamber of Secrets!" he screamed, "I'm going to get expelled if anyone finds out and... wait, where did the Basilisk go? Oh, SHIT. Basilisk! Come back!"

He turned and ran out of the pipe he entered from. Hopefully it hadn't started killing things already...

* * *

**March 3****rd**** 1993 – Hogwarts Corridors**

The Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch match had just finished with another close loss by Gryffindor and Harry was making his way back to the tower with the other depressed Gryffindors for the post match commiseration. They had been 130 points ahead when the Hufflepuff Seeker Cedric Diggory had spotted the Snitch and, as Gryffindors Seekers were all crap with Oliver Wood trying desperately to find a decent one, he had easily caught it to give the Badgers a narrow victory over the Lions.

Harry didn't particularly care for the score, he just went to the games as a show of house loyalty and to pick up some tips on flying as some of them were rather good. He was contemplating the impressive dive Diggory had pulled off and wondering if he could replicate it on a school broom when Malfoy stepped into the group's path along with a large amount of Slytherins.

Harry quickly looked round and saw that the majority of the school was here, 'Puffs and 'Claws looking on nervously whilst the Snakes moved to surround them. There was no way this wasn't going to end badly.

"Another loss for your pathetic team, it's a wonder Gryffindor even bother playing with that useless line up. You should try out Longbottom, getting your ungainly backside up there can only make the team better." Harry sighed, Malfoy just had to start didn't he.

"I'm better than you Malfoy you had to buy your way onto the team, without your Father you're useless!" And Longbottom had to continue it.

"You leave my Father out of this!" Malfoy shouted as he drew his wand, "He's better than those blood traitors you hang with!"

"Is that why he gave Ginny that Dark Artefact, was he afraid of her? Your Death Eater Father threatened by an eleven year old?"

"My Father isn't afraid of anyone, Scarhead!"

"Didn't deny it though did you?" Weasley interjected, "And were going to pay you back for trying to hurt my sister!" He drew his wand and shouted a curse.

Unfortunately that seemed to be the straw that broke the camel's back. Not only had Longbottom, Malfoy and their respective cronies drawn their wands, but so had nearly everyone else in the hallway and it would be only seconds before curses were flying thick and fast. Noticing a group of scared first years eyeing the upper years and attempting to hide behind him he quickly pushed them to the floor and started shielding them.

It was only moments later that those shields started being tested. Splashes of colour were flying around the room and Harry had a _Protego _summoned by each hand moving round and was attempting to reflect as many of the curses as he could back at their caster. The fight was getting worse and worse as the 'Puffs and 'Claws joined in, some aiming at the Slytherins and some at the Lions. The First years had bunched up around him, seeking as much cover as they could from his shields. He rolled his eyes, they had been only too happy to join in last time but now they were out of their depths.

He noticed that it wasn't only First years crouched on the floors near him now, Patil and Brown were as well along with a trio of third years. He extended the shields as much as he could but it was taxing to try and move those shields around. He just couldn't physically cover all directions with only two hands, nor split his concentration further and it was then that he realised that this was about to have dire consequences. His left hand was outstretched, blocking the constant attempts by the Fourth year Slytherins to hex his charges, his right arm was bent, having just taken a strong Curse from a Seventh year that had forced his shield back. He looked over his shoulder and groaned, one of the First year Snakes was about to hex him in the back. He couldn't move his hands for the amount of damage he would take. Desperately he closed his eyes and pulled at his magic, trying to split it in a third direction, tried to visualise its effects.

He opened them again when he felt the curse bounce off something behind him and turning, realised he had cast a third _Protego, _it was weak but it was still enough to take care of the weaker spells. But his head was aching trying to keep his attention split so many ways, although he was glad he didn't have to spin anymore to cover all the angles, and his head felt like it was splitting apart and there were six Fourth years on his left, wands raised, a Seventh year on his right chanting something dangerous, two First years behind him...

And his head was feeling worse and worse and he tried to pull his attention back together as he forced yet another shield to spring into existence to cover the back of a Second year Hufflepuff girl who was almost cursed by a Slytherin yearmate, Bones and Nott he thought...

It was then he noticed Luna, a piece of his attention looking out for her. They had met a few more times after Hagrid had introduced him to her and Ginny and he had gotten tentatively on with them. He thought she was a bit odd or deliberately taking the piss out of him with her constant talk of non-existent creatures. At first he thought it was the latter and was a little cold with her, but eventually he realised it was the former and she was nice enough as long as you didn't try to understand what she was on about. Ginny was a bit of a different matter. She had a huge crush on Longbottom but was a good friend to Luna and could talk about other things than Longbottom, mainly her love of Quidditch.

They weren't exactly friends but they weren't exactly not either, they were... acquaintances. And he looked after his friends... and acquaintances, so when he saw Luna being repeatedly cursed by some of her housemates, holding her wand and, well, bullying her he paused. He was about to step in and help her, it wouldn't be too hard to disarm her tormentors even with his shields in place, but then one of the Sixth year 'Claws stepped up and punched her.

"Don't like that do you, you little freak?"

Freak.

He hated the word Freak.

It conjured up images of his Relatives and his Cupboard. His concentration snapped itself back together and turned all of its attention to Luna's tormenters.

Freak.

His thoughts moved away from now and he lost his focus along with his grip on his magic, his shields failing quickly.

Smack. "Looney Lovegood, the Freak."

Freak.

"_You're a good-for-nothing freak boy, just like your parents!"_

Freak.

He'd show them Freak.

* * *

The Slytherins smiled to each other as they watched Squibby's shields drop along with his head and hands. They raised their wands and prepared to curse the now undefended lower years. They didn't see his fists clench nor his eyes cloud with anger. One of them smirked to himself and cast a curse.

"_Diffindio!_"

* * *

Harry heard the shout and the images of his relatives disappeared and the hall snapped back into focus. He could feel one of the First years tugging at his robes and begging for him to do something, to protect them. His magic roared back into his grasp, demanding to be released and he obliged. He raised his hands and felt his magic pour out of his body, cutting curse, levitating charm, piercing curse, disarming spell, fire conjuring, knockback jinx, incarcerating curse, reducing curse, impeding jinx, blasting curse, water conjuring, freezing charm, explosive hex, every spell he could think of endlessly chained together. They were flying from his hands, arms and legs but even with his massive core he couldn't keep that rate of fire up forever, he was only twelve.

Most of the students had been taken out in the initial barrage, not even seeing who had hit them, though none were injured critically. Any that had been left had been quickly shielded but even they had been worn down and knocked out by the sheer amount of curses flying through the air. Harry was barely visible at the centre of this multi-coloured storm of magic, swirling around him like ethereal armour. Then he collapsed, the magic following soon after.

When it cleared the hall was a very different looking place. The floor was covered with bodies and the walls and ceilings had taken a lot of damage. There were patches of ice covering the floor and a few unlucky students, along with patches of fire, fed by the burning tapestries and paintings. There were deep wounds on the walls from cutting and piercing curses and fragments of debris from objects and people who had been levitated into the ceiling at high speed.

Most of the students down had minor injuries, having succumbed to magical exhaustion, with a few of the upper years suffering more severe injuries as they had been upright when the barrage had started. The damages weren't limited to house either, Harry having been rather indiscriminate in his magic-fuelled rage.

* * *

Neville looked round in a daze. He was the only student left conscious and he thanked the research his parents had put into how he had survived the Killing Curse. When his Gran had died for him she had put in place a shield that would reflect any malicious damage directed against him and this golden shield had sprung up during the fight behind him when Squibby's insane barrage began.

That worried him. It hadn't sprung up against anyone else as they didn't intend to kill him, not even Malfoy and his Goons, but it had against one of his dorm mates.

He would have to be careful around Squi... _Potter, _it wouldn't do to set him off again and calling him that probably didn't help his case.

He sighed in relieve as the he saw the Professors running towards them, hopefully Ron and he wouldn't get in too much trouble for starting this and maybe he could get on Sq... Potters good side if he didn't implicate him in all of this. He doubted many knew that it was Potter who had lost it and taken everyone out and everyone would follow his lead on the matter. They always did.


	7. Summer Between Years Two and Three

I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts that look like they are from the books probably are.

* * *

**June 14****th**** 1993 – Harry's Tent**

Harry was pissed. And you could tell. Random things in his tent were floating and starting to shake violently, his second year defence books now just shredded paper spinning in the magic surrounding him.

He had thought that after his magical meltdown and the following take down of every other person in the corridor that he would get a little more respect. And he did, in a way, the lower years that had hidden behind his shields were much kinder to him now, but that was only for shielding them, in their minds, until he succumbed to magical exhaustion.

And Longbottom was politer as well, even if his cronies were as insulting as usual, he was their there to pull them back and apologise. That was new as well, being apologised to, although Longbottom had seemed to be avoiding him as much as he could.

But the Slytherins, they were a different matter. Malfoy and his friends' taunts had gotten worse, as if protecting others was a bad thing, that he should have just let them be cursed. They were also all trying to claim responsibility for taking everyone else out as well, trying to show the others that they were the most powerful. It was all rather sad. He had thought that Slytherin was the house of the cunning, and aside from a couple in each year, it seemed to be purely the house of the ambitious and mouthy.

The Professors at least hadn't fallen for it. Instead they seemed to think that it had been Longbottoms doing, even though he had explicitly said he wasn't responsible, they seemed to think he was trying to be modest. Dumbledore especial had been going around with a larger smile on his face and more twinkles in his eyes, as if he had been proved right about something.

He sighed and tried to put it out of his mind. Concentrating on his new books he decided that a bit of reading would take his mind off of the subject. Thinking of subjects sent his mind into thinking about the electives he had chosen to take next year. Care of Magical Creatures was a given seeing how he got on with them and Arithmancy looked rather easy given that nearly everything in the magical world was apparently controlled by it in some way.

But in was Ancient Runes that had really peaked his interest. It was the first magic he would be able to learn that allowed him make things permanent. He had tried it in Transfiguration but even if he over powered it they would only last a few days and would fall apart at a _finite incantatum, _permanent transfigurations and conjuration not being taught until Fifth and Sixth years.

It wasn't just permanency though, even if he was going to abuse the hell out of that, Runes allowed you to store magic and power spells created by other runic sequences indefinitely, to use magic that you wouldn't be taught until your N.E.W.T.s if you were willing to sit down and carve the rune sequences out. And you didn't have to carve it only either, after getting his course textbooks, Ancient Runes Made Easy and Rune Dictionary, he had gotten a copy of Calligraphy and Carving, which showed how to carve, write, sew and tattoo runes among other more exotic methods. He had gotten a few other books on various subjects as well, Spell Creation, Legilimency and Combat Magic.

Unfortunately the second hand shop didn't have very many books on Ancient Runes, probably because they never changed being ancient and all, so he had headed to Flourish and Blotts to see if they had any useful books but the price, it was really expensive on the little money he had earned from Tom over the Holidays. He decided that the best places was probably the Library at Hogwarts, he could spend the money if he really needed to, but right now that wasn't an option, he couldn't wipe out all of his carefully hoarded savings on one book.

Maybe if he asked nicely Tom would give him a pay rise. Probably not, but it was a nice thought.

* * *

**Deputy Headmistresses Office**

Professor McGonagall had just finished writing the last of the letters to the parents of a new Muggle-Born student, they had known for some time that their child was magical and had a lot of questions, the novelty of mailing letters by owl also not having worn off. The boy was very much like Miss. Granger, clever and inquisitive, it was a pity she had been attacked by the Troll and no surprise that she had been a little traumatised. She had gotten on better with her Dorm mates after the incident and she was glad to see them supporting her.

Her thoughts turned to her other soon-to-be Third year Lions, Neville was doing very well in his studies and whilst the other students were catching up on subject matter he had a much better and broader grasp on what she taught. She only wished that his interest in studies would have rubbed off on his friends but Mr. Weasley was rather unenthusiastic about learning and Mr. Finnegan and Mr. Thomas were only a little better. At least they weren't dragging Neville down with them.

The last of the boys had confused her initially. Mr. Potter had had no skill in transfiguration, unlike his father who had been excellent from the start, or indeed any other practical magic subject according to her colleagues but he had turned that around after a few months and was now one of the best students in her, or indeed anybody's, class. She had been so proud of him when she had heard that he had protected the younger students during the last fight between her Gryffindors and Slytherin, why Neville and Mr. Malfoy were so antagonistic she didn't know, and she still winced when she remembered the accidental oath she had almost forced him to make.

She had been distracted by Neville's argument that someone was after the Stone, how they even knew about it she still didn't know, that she had absentmindedly carried on the conversation and had him swear on his magic! She doubted he had even knew what he was swearing and was just being flippant, if vague memories of what he had been saying beforehand were correct. If he wasn't telling the truth she would have forced a student to become a squib!

* * *

**July 1****st**** 1993 – The Leaky Cauldron**

Harry was out the back of the pub in the kitchens cooking some of the patrons' lunch when the owl flew in. The letter clutched in its talons looked very official but that didn't excuse that there was an animal in the kitchen where he was preparing food, did Wizards have no concept of hygiene?

He let the bird perch on his arm as he carried it out of the kitchen and took the letter from its grasp. The seal on it looked familiar but it took Harry a moment to place it as belonging to Gringotts. He wondered what they wanted, the goblins having been adamant that there were no circumstances under which he would be able to enter the main Potter vault until he was seventeen.

He could get into his trust vault but that was pretty much useless, as they were empty and the vast majority of any money he deposited there would be removed and placed into the main vault, where he would then not be able to get to it.

He opened the envelope and pulled out the thick parchment.

_Heir Potter_

_You will soon reach the age of thirteen and Gringotts would like to meet with you to discuss the new duties you will have at this age towards the House of Potter._

_Pleases meet with Account Manager Seizemaul at Two O'clock on August 1__st__ 1993._

_Senior Clerk Darkhammer_

'New duties?' Harry thought, 'you mean they'll actually let me do something with my accounts?' he put the letter down and turned back to go into the kitchen. He doubted there would be much they would let him do until he reached the age of majority, the goblins were obstructive little bastards.

He turned back to the stove where he was cooking the bacon and sausages for a full English breakfast that Tom had asked him to cook for a customer. He concentrated on it and tried to tune everything else out. He had read in one of his books about Legilimency, the offensive mind art, which would allow him a greater understanding of the creatures he and Hagrid dealt with. They understood him perfectly well after all but he was sometimes unsure of their intentions, dealing with Norberta would have been much easier had he been able to read her mind.

Unfortunately to be able to use Legilimency you had to have a firm grounding in Occlumency, you couldn't just jump into someone's mind, if your mental barriers weren't strong enough their mind would start to overwhelm your own and that, according to the books, would result in '_complete and utter mental collapse.' _He wasn't too keen to experience that.

This was why he was concentrating on the cooking food to the exclusion of everything else. The aim was to clear your mind and the book recommended you do this by focussing on a few things then less the next time, and so on until you were concentrating on one thing only. Then came the hard part, from concentrating on one thing, to concentrating on nothing and this was the stage Harry was on now.

He pushed everything out of his mind until the only thing he knew was the bacon frying in the pan. Then he tried to push that out as well, trying to make his mind completely blank, zoning everything out...

Tom had just finished collecting the empty glasses from the tables and was taking them out into the kitchen to be washed when he noticed Harry at the stove. He was just standing there, no movement or sound, completely ignoring the bacon that was starting to burn in front of him.

"Harry! Stop slacking and start cooking!"

He started as Tom called out at him. Well he had succeeded in the first phase of learning to be an Occlumens, however briefly it may have been. Now he just had to get the other phases down, Occluding while distracted, Occluding whilst maintaining awareness and however many other phases he hadn't remembered. Hopefully Legilimency would be worth all the work.

* * *

**August 1****st**** 1993 – Gringotts**

Harry was waiting in the foyer at Gringotts for his appointment. He was watching the Goblins hurry past carrying messages and packages from the tellers to the doorway where they were taken to the vaults? He wasn't quite sure where the doorway went. A voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Heir Potter?" the Goblin asked.

"Yes?" he replied a little hesitantly. The Goblin looked him up and down.

"Indeed." He sniffed, "Follow me."

He led him out through the doorway he had been contemplating and then down a series of corridors, past door after door each with the name of a Goblin on it. He stopped in front of one and gestured towards the door.

"Manager Seizemaul will see you now," he said before turning and striding back the way they came. Harry watched him go before knocking on the door.

"Enter," a deeper voice said. Harry opened the door and walked in. The room was well furnished but not overly opulent. There was a desk with a Goblin he presumed was Seizemaul seated behind it and on the wall behind him were a selection of axes, some still stained with blood.

"Good Afternoon Heir Potter I am Account Manager Seizemaul, I am in charge of the Potter Accounts," he said this with a weariness about him that Harry had never associated with Goblins before.

"I have summoned you here today to speak to you about your new privileges in regards to your Family Vaults, now that you have turned thirteen. I have had requests from you previously about entering your Vaults and whilst you still cannot until you reach your majority, I can now give you an inventory and the ledgers to each vault." He gestured to his desk where a few leather backed books and rolls of parchment had been stacked.

"You may take them with you and look at them later. Whilst House Potter is neither the oldest, nor the richest of houses they were not the poorest either. Your Houses was quite well off until the middle of the century until the War against Grindelwald, when there were some losses, but not as many as those during the Blood War. As most of the richer Pureblood Houses supported the Dark Lord it fell to Houses Potter and Longbottom to attempt to counteract their Influences in the Wizengamot. Your Father was successful at this until the latter days of the War when the House began to run out of capital, and with this your Father was forced to sell off some of the businesses he had invested in. Had your parents survived I am sure the money would have been made back quickly as both had high paying jobs and they would have been able to buy back the businesses."

Harry listened carefully to the Goblin and noticed the pained expression on his face, or what passed for one for a Goblin the amount of teeth he was showing was a little off putting.

"You don't seem very happy about that," Harry said cautiously.

"I shall be frank Heir Potter when I first took control of these accounts for your grandfather it was a step up from what I had been working on before and in the first few years I made the finances flourish. When the Wars happened though everything went downhill and many of my colleagues blame me and my 'inept' managing skills for the reason the vaults are now in this state. Unfortunately there is very little either of us can do about it until you reach the age of seventeen. When that happens I hope you shall increase the fortunes of your House again, and I shall support you when I can, but at the moment? We can do nothing."

"Thank you Manager Seizemaul," Harry said softly, his thought whirring away, "I shall do what I can..."

* * *

**August 18th 1993 – Harry's Tent**

Harry had been looking through the ledgers Seizemaul had given him. It had taken him a while to get through them as his Grandfather and Father had left notes for each of the larger transactions, he could see why Malfoy was constantly banding around his Father's name, more than a third of the transactions from the 70s were to apparently counteract his influences on the Wizengamot. He wasn't the only one though, the Lestranges and the Notts were two other notable names in bribing the government.

The Inventories had been fairly small, anything that had value had been sold off for more capital and all that was left were a few books and his ancestors' personal belongings. His parents' were in there having been deposited after their deaths and he couldn't get to them. That had really ticked him off. A few of his parents things were worth a lot more than mere gold to Harry and that he would have to wait until he was seventeen...

He sighed and turned his attention back to the Ledgers. He was rather intrigued by the last few transactions in the books. Unlike the previous ones they had no reason given for being withdrawn and for the amount of money released, surely his father would have. He took a closer look.

Five thousand Galleons was the last one, withdrawn on the 15th March 1984. Wait... 84? He double checked. He had read it right, he frowned and checked the others, thinking it was a typo.

Five thousand Galleons, 29th June 1983. 'Again?' he thought.

Five thousand Galleons, 2nd September 1982. 'That can't be right...'

Five thousand Galleons, 11th December 1981.

Four dates. _Four dates! _After his parents death someone had been removing many for no given reason! He checked the other columns and his fists clenched when he realised they all said the same thing.

Transferred to the Vault of A.P.W.B. Dumbledore.


	8. Third Year

I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts that look like they are from the books probably are.

Don't expect an update this large again anytime soon.

_A note on the Heirs and Houses: Harry, Neville and Draco are the Heirs, Capital H, of their respective Houses now that they are thirteen, rather than heirs, lower case h, that they were before. Both Neville and Draco's respective fathers are Heads of their Houses. Draco is also Head of House Black because it has other Blacks who are still alive, Bellatrix and Narcissa even if both are married, while Harry is only Heir of House Potter because House Potter has no other members._

Ignore that last bit, I've updated my plans and it will be explained next chapter.

Dumbledore is on the list of people who can withdraw money from the Potter vaults, hence it is completely legal for him to withdraw money, if a little immoral. Harry cannot change this until he is the Head of House Potter.

I'm going with 1:100 ish with the money as Molly draws out a single galleon from the vault to pay for five children's Hogwarts needs. Even if she has more money on her she views one galleon as a significant enough investment to put it in the bank. Seeing as the goblins were weighing piles of jewels at the front desk, I don't imagine they'd go for watering down the gold, they have fool-proof ways of stopping the coins from being changed.

Underage drinking is bad, don't get caught doing it.

* * *

**1****st**** September 1993 – Great Hall**

Harry was sat on the bench, a little separated from his year mates save Patil and Brown who were glancing at him occasionally, glaring up at the Staff table. That long-bearded bastard stole from him and even if the Goblins said it was completely legal and there was nothing he could do about it, he wasn't going to let it stand. His thoughts were interrupted however by the doors opening and the First years nervously trouping in.

His jaw dropped. There were bloody loads of them! More than double the amount in his year and the second year together. He was trying to work out why there were so many and after the first few calls of 'Anson, Neville' and 'Brown, Neville' he had worked out why. These were all the children born after Voldemorts defeat. He wouldn't be surprised if they were all born in August given that it was nine months after Halloween.

The novelty of all the Nevilles wore off after a while, although one poor girl who was sorted into Hufflepuff named Nevillina did raise a chuckle, and he went back to glaring at Dumbledore. He was determined to get even, but how? He had been stolen from and the best way to get even would be to break into his home and steal some of Dumbledore's stuff, but that would be really sodding difficult. He smiled slightly as he remembered a saying, 'the hardest challenges have the best rewards.' Yes, he would steal from him, he would definitely have some stuff worth taking.

Unfortunately he would have to circumvent all of the Headmasters defences. It was an open secret that all the portraits reported what they saw and heard back to Dumbledore, and given that every wall in the castle was plastered with portraits, it was a highly effective way for the Headmaster to know everything that happened in his castle. Having seen the inside of Dumbledore's office in his first year, he knew that he would have to get around all the paintings of the previous head teachers, if he wanted to take anything from there, but how?

He was so absorbed in plotting his revenge that he almost missed the announcements. He turned and managed to catch the last of them. He had been wondering who the new Defence teacher would be, although the man did look familiar...

"And finally," the Thief said, "I would like to introduce our new Professor for Defence Against the Dark Arts, Professor Frank Longbottom!"

Harry raised an eyebrow as the other members of his house applauded the new teacher. 'Well, good to know there won't be _any_ favouritism this year...'

* * *

**3****rd**** September 1993**

It was the first DADA lesson of the year and Harry was _anxious _to see how _fairly _the class was taught, knowing that the teacher was _completely unbiased._ Really. Although, even if Longbottom was really badly biased towards Longbottom he would still be a better teacher than Quirrell or Lockhart.

That was a little confusing though. He was going to have to come up with a way to differentiate between the two. Senior and Junior? No, Longbottom and Oldbottom? Maybe it would be easier just to stick with 'Professor'.

A short while later saw the new Professor striding towards the front of the class, his wand in his hand and writing appearing of the board ahead of him.

"Good morning class," he began, turning to face them, "As the Headmaster said on Monday I am the new professor for Defence against the Dark Arts, Professor Longbottom. I am a former Auror, and what I shall be teaching you this year shall reflect that.

I understand that you may have been taught how to duel by your former professor, Gilderoy Lockhart, but in my class you will follow my instructions. During this lesson I shall outline the topics for the year, as well as an overview of the final exam, before we move onto the first spell we shall cover, the Disarming Charm. Are there any questions?"

Grangers hand shot up, reminiscent of their first year, and Professor Longbottom gestured for her to speak, "Why should we disregard Professor Lockhart's teachings Sir?"

"Whilst Professor Lockhart was a ... competent ... teacher Miss Granger," Professor Longbottom replied, "He was not trained as an Auror and, as you can read in his books, he mainly dealt with non-human creatures. I however, shall be teaching you how to deal with a wand-armed opponent. Any other questions? No? Then I'll start on the lesson proper.

We will not only cover the Disarming Charm, but also other common spells and how they are applicable in a duel, such as the Shield Charm, Stunning Spell and..."

Harry was rather surprised with Professor Longbottoms lesson. Not only was he the first DADA professor he had had that actually deserved the title but he wasn't biased towards or against anyone in the class. He treated the Slytherins with the same courtesy he treated the Gryffindors and, if anything, was harsher on Neville than any other member of the class.

Whilst the Disarming charm wasn't new to anyone in the class, how he taught them to use it was, except to Harry. It had taken Harry a fair bit of researching to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the Disarming charm and now the teacher was telling everyone! He was almost annoyed at all his hard work being wasted.

The lesson had flown by, but with Professor Longbottom asking his son to stay behind Harry couldn't help but be nosy and stand just outside the door and listen in to their conversation. He wouldn't be surprised if he was being offered extra-curricular lessons and, while he would be annoyed, it would restore his faith in the world if the best and most unbiased teacher _didn't _turn out to be Longbottom's father.

"Neville," he heard him start, "I didn't get the chance to say this before you left and your conversations with the younger Malfoy have only pushed it further towards the front of my mind, but you are officially Heir Longbottom now, and your actions reflect on the rest of us. Whatever gripe you may have with him has to end, or at least cease to be violent and overtly insulting. We can't afford him to declare a feud between our family and Houses Malfoy and Black, we haven't recovered enough from the last war yet."

"I know dad," Neville replied, sounding rather angry, "But he pushes and pushes, like he knows we can't fight back. He's got plenty of allies to call on, even if they don't like him they'll be only too glad to wipe us out, and what have we got? A burgeoning House Weasley and I doubt we can call on the destitute remains of House Potter, no matter how skilled their last member is."

"You'll just have to put up with it Nev," was the put upon response, "And speaking of Mr Potter, I still don't believe he is as powerful as you say, even if he does appear to be catching you up, it's probably because you're slacking off! Now, off you go, it won't be long till your next lesson."

Their conversation seemingly over, Harry moved away from the door, a slight skip in his step. Even if no one believed him, Neville had acknowledged his strength. He still didn't like him, but, perhaps he could respect him.

* * *

**September 5****th**** 1993 – Hogwarts Grounds**

Harry had been looking forward to their first Care of Magical Creatures class since he had signed up for it and although he had been rather stumped by the Monster Book of Monsters at first sight, he had quickly gotten use to the rather odd book, treating it just as he would any other animal.

He had gotten a few odd looks of course, most of the other Gryffindors wonder why he was stroking the spine of the book that was currently under his arm, as they walked down towards Hagrid's hut. He couldn't help but notice that no one else was doing the same, in fact the general consensus seemed to be to tie the poor books up. He had spotted spellotape, belts, and one book trying to gnaw its way through the rope that had been rather awkwardly tied around it.

Harry was at the back of the group of Gryffindors, Neville leading the way towards were Hagrid was stood, the shiny blond head of Malfoy warning him that he would be having these subjects with the Slytherins.

"C'mon, now, get a move on!" he called as the class approached. "Got a real treat for yeh today! Great lesson comin' up! Everyone here? Right, follow me!"

Harry was rather excited when he saw Hagrid leading them towards the forbidden forest, he hadn't had a chance to return there yet, and he missed the freedom he had in the forest, there was nowhere he couldn't go, no one who could stop him, save maybe the Basilisk. Unfortunately, at least to Harry as several other members of class let out sighs of relief, Hagrid chose to lead them around the trees and towards a small paddock, only a short distance from the remains of Norberta's pen, some of the Slytherins pointing it out to each other and laughing.

"Everyone gather 'round the fence here!" he called. "That's it, make sure yeh can see, now firs' thing yeh'll want ter do is open yer books..."

"How?" Malfoy piped up from the crowd as Harry rolled his eyes.

"Eh?" said Hagrid, probably wondering why Malfoy had asked such an idiotic question.

"How do we open our books?" Malfoy repeated.

Harry watched as not only Malfoy but the rest of the Slytherins pulled out their books. They had been decidedly less gentle than most of the Gryffindors, Malfoy's appearing to have been nailed shut, slight whimpers coming out from between its pages, whilst Greengrass' had a piece of paper bound around it, runes written on it in a flowing script, and the book itself appeared to be dead.

He shivered at their seemingly casual brutality, and resolved to take greater care when dealing with unknown magic.

Hagrid looked crestfallen at their failure to understand how their books worked and asked, "Hasn' anyone bin able ter open their books?"

Harry raised his hand, the book starting at the sudden movement and moving up his arm, finally deciding to perch on his shoulder and gently nibble his ear.

"You need to be gentle with them, treat them like a small animal, stroke them, that kind of thing," Harry said as Hagrid smiled at him and the rest of the class looked at him askance.

"Brillian' 'Arry, I shoulda known you'd know wha' ta do, 'ave a poin' for Gryffindor," he replied as the rest of the class dubious started stroking their books and watching them flop open with raised eyebrows.

"Stroke them!" Malfoy squealed, "It's an animal, I don't want to stroke it, it could have disease's!"

"Malfoy," Harry said, rolling his eyes at the magically raised boy's question, it was a question he'd expect from one of the muggleborns, "It's an enchanted book, it just acts like an animal, you can't catch rabies from it."

"Shut it, Squibby," he replied snidely, "I don't want to hear about magic from you. _And_ it's Lord Black!"

He paled suddenly and quickly backed away, the rest of the class following him. Harry wondered why, he'd heard Hagrid wander off and he could hear his large footsteps coming back accompanied by what sounded like hooves. He turned about and was rather shocked to see a pair of orange eyes a few inches from his own set just above a wicked looking beak and surrounded by brown feathers.

"Er, calm down 'Arry, "Hagrid said, sounding rather worried, "And bac' away slowly..."

Harry ignored him and took a single step back before bowing deeply, although he didn't break eye contact, and felt rather pleased when the Hippogryph bowed back almost immediately. He stepped forward and reached out a hand, stoking the feathers on the top of his head as he nuzzled into his hands.

"Eh? You met Sharpbeak already 'Arry?" he heard Hagrid ask, and he suddenly became aware of the rest of the class staring at him like they'd never seen him before.

"Yeah," he replied, wondering why everyone was staring at him, "Met him and the rest of the Herd in the Forest last year, he's an excellent flyer, aren't you?"

"Yeh, well," Hagrid started again, trying to regain control of his lesson, "If yer step forwar' an' bow to one o' the 'Erd, keep eye contac' though, an' wait fo' 'em ta bow back, then they'll let yer pet 'em. Be polite 'ough, very prou' creatures, Hippogryphs."

Harry was only half listening to Hagrid, most of his attention being on Sharpbeak beside him and the rest of the class. He wasn't quite sure why they were all staring at him, oh petting the Hippogryphs like it was an everyday occurrence might be part of it, but these were more intense stares, all of them from the girls as far as he could tell, like they were trying to remember his past actions and struggling to reconcile it with the person they saw in front of them, gently stroking the oversized Hippogryph with a faint smile on his face.

He turned his gaze upwards, the blue skies almost calling to him, and noticed Sharpbeak doing the same, his head upturned and his fierce orange eyes staring up at the castle. Harry turned his head towards him slightly and gave him a slight smirk.

"You thinking what I'm thinking Sharpbeak?"

He replied with a deep affirmative cry, as if he had been anticipating Harry's question, and Harry grasped him firmly on his wing joint, careful not to pull out any feathers, then swung himself up onto Sharpbeak's back and settled himself comfortably between his wings.

"Hagrid!" He called, drawing the attention of the rest of the class to him, "Sharpbeak and I are just going for a short flight, we'll be back in a bit!"

"Alrigh'," Hagrid replied, "But don' fall off!"

"Never!" Harry laughed, calmly wrapping his arms around Sharpbeak's neck as his reared up on his hind legs before charging forwards, quickly gaining speed as he stretched his wings out to their full length. Seconds later they were in the air, the smooth beats of Sharpbeak's wings almost lulling Harry to sleep, not the most sensible of things when flying.

He leant to the side peering over Sharpbeak's wings as he tried to catch a glimpse of the class below, none of them daring to join him in the air on their own mighty steed.

* * *

**On the ground**

Back with the rest of the Care of Magical Creatures class Daphne Greengrass and Tracey Davis shared a look. Whilst Slytherin appeared to show a united front to the other houses behind that lay some of the most intricate politics outside of the Wizengamot. Daphne tended to work much more subtly than other Slytherins in their year, especially Draco, who didn't seem to understand the cunning part of 'Cunning and Ambitious'. She had a few allies in the upper years and was relying on her younger sister, Astoria, to scout out those in the newest year.

It was a dangerous dance, pureblood politics, and any connections she could gain now would serve her and the rest of House Greengrass well outside of the school in the, admittedly rather small, British magical community. House Greengrass wasn't one of the Ancient houses, but they were still fairly old, and their star had been rising slowly and steadily for centuries. She would not allow that to change with her generation, even if the size of her house was much reduced.

Tracey on the other hand was a half-blood, her pure-blood mother, Ursula Burke, having married a muggleborns, Evan Davies, and been disowned from House Burke because of it. Her father had not survived the war and she would have been easy prey in Slytherin, if it had not been for her mother teaching her the pure-blood customs and her friendship with Daphne.

The two of them had banded together and carved themselves out a small block of influence and owed favours, enough that Draco could not anger them without being aware of the repercussions, if he was actually smart enough to recognise that there could be repercussions. Still he was Lord Black, he had been harping on about it and even more people were trying to ingratiate themselves with him, and that was a name to respect, even if Draco himself was not, so they kept their distance and stayed respectful.

They had made a few friends outside of Slytherin, mainly Ravenclaws, but also a few Hufflepuffs, although the legendary Gryffindor insider remained elusive not only for them but also for the rest of Slytherin house.

Daphne knew that Longbottom was too secure, House Longbottom having received a huge boost to their reputation with their Heirs defeat of the Dark Lord, whilst House Weasley still had not recovered from the foolishness of Septimus the Gambler, who had bet what little remained of their money and land after Grindelwald's war and lost. Neither Thomas or Finnegan wielded any influence, although their wands were likely to be firmly at the side House Longbottom.

But Potter? He'd just been Squibby, the last useless remnant of House Potter, so bad at magic he could cause a match to explode. It had been a while though, since he had messed up and actually _deserved _the name Squibby, he seemed to have melted into the shadows and everyone had forgotten about him.

But the way he'd been so calm when the Hippogryphs had been brought into the clearing, there had been no fear, not even when that sharply curved beak had been nibbling on his fingers as he had tried to pat it. That was a side that none of them had seen before.

She cast her mind back, trying to remember the vaguely defined figure that had defended the younger years during the Longbottoms and Malfoys fight in the entrance hall last year. She was sure that had been Potter, but she had been knocked out, embarrassingly quickly it had to be said, when Longbottom had supposedly gone mad but had Potter? His shields had taken a lot of damage, and surely they would have survived long enough for him to see who had cursed everyone, Longbottom declaring time and again that _it hadn't been him._

Daphne decided she would look a little closer at Potter, as she watched him and his Hippogryph bank around and prepare to land. If the feeling she had was correct then Potter was a lot more dangerous than he looked, and he wasn't on anyone side. Hopefully she could convince him to join hers before anyone else did.

* * *

**A little later**

Sharpbeak landed and Harry gently slipped off his back and began stroking the large creature's head. He wasn't the only one enjoying themselves now, several of the girls had clustered around a mother and her young ... foal? Harry wasn't sure if it was the correct term but it would have to do. The mother was bearing the girls attention well, although she was keeping a close eye on those near her child, wary of them doing anything harmful to it.

He turned just in time to hear Malfoy refer to another of the Herd as a 'great ugly brute' and smiled to himself. He knew it was a terrible thing to happen in Hagrid's first lesson but damn, if he wasn't going to enjoy the results of Malfoy's idiocy.

'This,' he thought to himself, 'Is for all those times you called me Squibby...'

He watched the Hippogryph, Buckbeak he had heard Hagrid call him, rear up and lash out at Malfoy, tearing a shallow gash across his arm and Malfoy throw himself backwards, screaming like a little girl. There was blood, he knew there would be but it was surprisingly little, given the massive talons Buckbeak had.

"I'm dying!" Malfoy yelled as the class panicked, Harry casually strolling towards them, "I'm dying, look at me! It's killed me!"

"Yer not dyin'!" said Hagrid, who had gone very white. "Someone help me, gotta get him outta here..."

"You take him to the Infirmary Hagrid," Harry said, as Hagrid easily lifted the injured boy up, "Madame Pomfrey will have him fixed in less than a minute, I'll take care of the Herd, get them back into the forest."

"Righ', righ'..." Hagrid replied worriedly, as he headed towards the gate that Longbottom was holding open.

Harry turned back to the Herd and gestured for them to follow him, wondering how this was going to end. Malfoy always cried about his father but they had yet to see him, but now? Now the man's son had been injured.

He looked over Buckbeak critically. The blood on his talons was quietly vanished, and a basic colour changing charm would make it more difficult to identify him. He wasn't sure how long it would last but hopefully Malfoy Sr would come sooner rather than later.

Harry sighed to himself, wondering if he should have stepped in and stopped Malfoy from being hurt...

Nah.

* * *

**22****nd**** September 1993 – Seventh Floor**

Harry was currently on the seventh floor, a badly drawn map in his hands and a contemplative expression on his face. Sometime during the summer, at least that's when he thought it had happened, someone had found and cleared out his practice room. It would have been fine if it had just been cleaned and tidied, but instead it had been used for storage, full from floor to ceiling with the same types of tables and chairs you would find in high class restaurants.

Since he had found it in that state, he had been busy trying to find a new place to set up his stuff and practice. So far he hadn't had much luck. Classrooms he was sure had been empty last year were now in the process of being restored, while others were being used as store rooms. Some of the things that were in these rooms he could understand, both the new first year and any subsequent years would be rather large, having been born after the war, and they would need more equipment.

But others? What did Hogwarts need with a stage and what appeared to be a large set of enchanted amps? Or an entire classroom full of fertiliser?

Incidentally he was glad that was down in the dungeons, the smell had been ferocious.

It wasn't until he wandered past the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy for the third time that he noticed the door opposite it. Pushing his mind away from the rather disturbing image of a troll in a tutu attempting to do the splits, he pushed the door open and went inside. He was sure this room hadn't been here the other two times he had walked past looking for a new practice room, he would have noticed it, he wasn't that unobservant.

Deciding that caution would probably be a wise idea, he silently severed a section of the tapestry, transfigured it a spider and imbued it with sentience. It was all about the visualisation, and he had spent too much time around Aragog and his spawn to ever forget what they looked like and how they acted. It was however, somewhat lesser in stature, the size of a small dog, rather than a small elephant. Still, it was an imposing sight.

"Can you go and check if there's anything inside," he asked the creature currently perched on his arm and shoulder, "I'll light the way for you."

It stared at him for a moment, then clicked its mandibles together and climbing down his leg. A gesture from Harry caused a small light to pop into existence above his hand, which then floated into the room, the spider scuttling after it. It didn't illuminate anything too dangerous, a few shelves of books, some potions equipment and what appeared to be a cloaked figure, startling Harry for a moment, but with a second look turned out to be target dummy.

All in all it appeared to be the perfect room for him to practice in, hardly anyone came up to the seventh floor and it was equipped with exactly what he needed. Harry sighed, knowing his luck it would probably turn out to be similar to the Mirror of Erised, a place you would never want to leave.

However it was a room in the castle, and all the rooms were cleaned by the house elves. He was on fairly good terms with them, better than most other students, and if he asked nicely he was sure they would be happy to tell him about it.

He turned to go to the kitchens then paused. Even if it was a transfigured spider, it didn't deserve to die alone in this room. He had created it, and it was his responsibility to make sure it enjoyed it's, admittedly rather short, life. He cast a glance around the room just in time to catch the last pair of legs disappearing out of the window. He frowned for a moment, then remembered.

Spiders hated Basilisks. No wonder it didn't stay. Maybe it would make it to the forest and live with the Acromantula, but he doubted it would live that long. It would probably end up as a piece of tapestry on the Quidditch pitch.

He cancelled the floating light, and started heading towards the kitchens, but after a few yards he turned and cast a glance back towards the door.

Which had vanished.

He shivered, glad he had listened to his instincts. He wouldn't have wanted to be stuck in there until someone had found him, unable to leave for the lack of a door. Most days he was amazed by magic, like it was that first day all over again, and other days he was afraid for what it could do, especially in the hands of some people, or the magical spells or artefacts that had no other purpose than to torture those nearby.

'Evil is evil,' he thought, 'Regardless of colour, creed or magic.'

* * *

**1****st**** October 1993 – Runes Classroom**

Runes, Harry decided was going to be a heavy subject. Their first year would introduce them to the various runic number series, before moving to Elder Futhark and how to link individual runes together in the latter half of the year. The second year would then see them covering other European runic languages, primarily Norse, Greek and Latin, and how to inscribe them, while third year would consist of cross-runic systems as well as the creation of their own runic sequences.

That was three new languages, as well as various child languages. He would be turning into a magical language specialist at this rate, already knowing Troll and Mermish, and he was getting better at Gobbledegook. Perhaps he should learn some non-magical languages, how difficult could it be to learn French or German compared to Mermish, a language that could only be spoken underwater and was a killer on the vocal chords?

Perhaps not German though. Whilst muggle Germany was prosperous since the Berlin wall came down, magical Germany had never really gotten off the ground, having been briefly joined by Grindelwald and falling apart after his imprisonment. They had reverted back to the various German states they had been before his rise and that had formed the Holy Roman Empire, with no one since managing to overcome Grindelwald's stigma and pull them into a united government.

Magically speaking Great Britain was still very powerful, retaining a great deal of control over the commonwealth. When the muggle armies had colonised the world the wizards had followed, some working together with local shamans and warlocks, whilst others dominated them and carved themselves out small magical estates.

It wasn't just Britain though, France, Spain and Portugal all had more influence than their muggle counterparts, France due to Napoleon and his conquest of Europe, as well as their African colonies, and Spain and Portugal due to their near total dominion of Mexico and South America. Magicals of both countries were almost always at each other's throats, and magical guerrilla warfare was apparently a weekly occurrence in South America as both countries tried to wrestle control of the entire continent from the other.

This was all according to the History of Magic books he had pulled from the library, Binns having nothing to say on anything other than Goblin Rebellion, but it also said that the Muggle governments had no idea this was going on. It wasn't just large supposedly former empires either, natives fighting the colonial invader from their tribes in the rainforests in South America, whilst in Africa they vanished into the desert after their raids on French and English magical colonies.

The United States of America was one of the few places that had managed to throw off their colonial shackles, British and French muggleborns who had fled persecution in Europe throwing their weight behind the revolutionary forces. They had forced the rich purebloods to relinquish their vast estates, operate by slaves' portkeyed from around the world, and set up their own government. Even though it had happened more than a century ago the country was still seen as an uppity newcomer, but they were one of the most progressive nations for integration with the muggle world.

He made a mental note of it, deciding on French and Spanish, even if it was unlikely he would need them if he ever decided to visit the continent or travel the world he would have a good grounding for speaking with anyone he might meet. Spanish would probably help if he took N.E.W.T level Runes, most of the supplementary material on Aztec runes had been translated into Spanish but no further, and even if it wasn't necessary it would be useful.

He turned his attention back to the problem he was working on. While the first number system had been easy to pick up it was mainly pictographic, and didn't really cover many number above a dozen. Combining them was a tricky art, ten wasn't Unicorn-Demiguise, well it was but it was the most inefficient way to write the number. Ehwaz-Quinteped was better, approximating twin fives, whilst Centipede was best, but wasn't always applicable.

Professor Babbling had also briefly touched on structure, individual runes were group together in a minor cluster that would perform a single task, major clusters being formed of any number of minor clusters and other major clusters would perform several complex tasks, and the whole set of runes, minor and major clusters was called the runic sequence.

Almost all of the runic sequences they were going to be taught were permanent versions of spells that they were already able to cast. It wouldn't be until fifth year that they would be inscribing sequences that had no wand alternative, even though these were some of the more powerful magics that could be created.

Still it was enjoyable and engaging, even if it took a while to draw the runes correctly, the teacher assured them that, with time and practice, drawing them freehand would be just as effective. He hadn't expected much, given it was their first lesson, but he was quite happy to be proven wrong, even if it would be a while until he could enchant his muggle clothing to fit and grow with him.

* * *

**22****nd**** October 1993 – Seventh Floor**

Harry was on the seventh floor again, outside the room the house elves had told him was called the Room of Requirement. It wasn't dangerous, and Harry felt a little silly for being so paranoid, even if it was sometimes necessary. Apparently the room had two modes, as it were, the Room of Hidden Things, a room of lost items without end, and a room that would become anything you wanted by summoning the required item from the Room of Hidden Things. It couldn't actually summon anything you wanted, but the sheer size of the Room of Hidden Things made it appear that it could.

Given that he wasn't quite sure what he wanted, he decided to enter the Room of Hidden Things and do a bit of window shopping, no one would now if anything was missing after all, and the elves didn't mind.

Stepping inside, his first impression was the sheer size of the room. He knew that it contained every item that was considered 'lost' in the castle over its entire history, but that wasn't the same as seeing the endless sets of shelves and piles of odd items.

Picking a heavy broom from one of the piles he looked it over. The twigs were all in the right place, none of them sticking out at odd angles, and the handle was free of any major damage. He mounted it and pushed off, it was a little slow but smooth and comfortable, more of a family broom than a racing broom. He decided it would be easier to spot what he wanted from the air, rather than from ground level as some of the piles towered over him and gently flew around waiting for anything to catch his eye.

The first things to do so were a set of matched knifes, goblin made by the looks of it, each with a single edged blade about twelve inches in length, ending in a clipped point, with the hilt adding another four inches. They were fairly plain, only a little embellishment around the crossguards, and the scabbards were plain leather. Or maybe hide, it was hard to tell.

Whilst most magicals looked down on melee weapons, they were fairly unnecessary because of the distances involved in a magical duel after all, Harry had spent too much time around creature whose only weapons were their fangs and claws to have the same view. Whilst it hadn't been difficult to transfigure a tree branch into a knife, they were crude and nowhere near the quality of a goblin forged blade. It was the work of a moment to strap them to his thighs, pulling the loose fabric of trousers tight, and drop his robes over them to cover them from sight. As far as he could tell they didn't restrict his mobility and wouldn't be spotted unless he did so intentionally.

There were a few other weapons that would have been usable but most of the others had been covered in rust or were broken into pieces or on the verge of it. However he didn't think he would be able to hide a double headed battle axe nearly as tall as he was or a war hammer with a head larger than Malfoy's ego. Even the smallest of the swords would be too large to hide beneath his flowing robes and he doubted the teachers would look favourably on him carrying it openly.

He ignored the piles of jewellery for now, although he was planning to take some to Diagon Alley later in the year and sell it for a few galleons, the bowls of necklaces and earrings not appealing to him, nor the tiara that sat on a statue's head nearby.

Setting the broom down beside him, he pulled a copy of Moste Potente Potions from one of the shelves. He had wanted to read it for some time, it was one of the foremost books on advanced potions after all even if most of the contents were a little on the dark side, but it was held in the restricted section of the library and he doubted any of the teachers would let a third year take it out.

He settled down and flipped through the pages until he came across the entry for Polyjuice Potion. A Potion that turns you into another person for a set period of time?

'This,' he thought, 'Could be exactly what I need to counter the portraits...'

* * *

**31****st**** October 1993**

It was the night of the Halloween feast and Harry was currently in a rather precarious position. He had been fairly sure that something would happen to ruin the night, something always did at Hogwarts, and he had decided to use that to check out Dumbledore's office, hoping that the distraction would keep him and the portraits out of the room.

Hence his current situation, floating on the broomstick he had pilfered from the Room of Hidden Things outside of the window, one hand holding him steady whilst the other held a vial full of Polyjuice Potion, one of Longbottoms hairs within it. He had picked one of his for the fact that if he did get seen, no one would actually believe that Longbottom would try to steal from the Headmaster and so he wouldn't get in trouble.

He had been tempted to implicate Malfoy, but after reading that the taste of the potion would depend on the character of the person you were going to transform into, he decided not to risk it.

He watched Dumbledore stand up from his chair and leave his office, careful to keep himself out of sight. It wasn't long after that realised most of the portraits had gone with him, the few that were left were all fast asleep from the looks of things, so he started to put his plan into action.

Downing the vial of polyjuice, overly sweet with an undercurrent of bitterness, and loosening his robes slightly to account for Longbottom's larger stature, he flew closer to the window and pulled himself inside, care not to hit anything with the broom as he dismounted and dropped quietly to the floor.

Looking around he took in the office, wondering if anything had changed from his previous visit with Hagrid. The strange instruments were still on spindly tables, shelves of books lined the walls and the Sorting Hat was asleep on one of them, its brim rising and falling rhythmically. He moved quietly towards the Headmasters desk and started looking through his papers.

Most were to do with the School, interspaced by requests from various political bodies. He kept going through until he found a rather interesting one on Longbottom and someone called Tom Riddle. A little digging revealed this to be Voldemort's given name, he couldn't really imagine a mother calling her son Voldemort, now he came to think of it, and an anagram of his self-proclaimed title.

It stated how Dumbledore believed Voldemort had made himself immortal, not something Harry was overjoyed to learn, specifically something called Horcruxes, which had anchored his soul to this plane of existence and allowed Voldemort to survive that night. A little more digging revealed what they were, the splitting of one soul into various containers, possibly the blackest magical art to exist. Until they were destroyed Voldemort would never truly die and he had made six, a total of seven soul fragments supposedly making him more powerful.

Dumbledore had written down what items he believed stored them, Voldemort's diary which had been destroyed by the Unspeakables last year, three founders' artefacts; Hufflepuffs Cup, Slytherins Locket and Ravenclaws Diadem, and a ring belonging to Voldemort's mother. Dumbledore wasn't sure where the last piece was kept, but Harry was rather surprised at how sentimental Voldemort appeared to be.

Or he could be getting the wrong impression. He hoped so.

According to the notes Horcruxes were incredibly difficult to destroy, and would attempt to possess any who used them for their intended function. The Unspeakables had apparently used a controlled Fiendfyre burn to get rid of the diary but apparently that wasn't a practical way to get rid of them. Harry hadn't encountered such a spell before and decided to look it up next time he was in the Room of Requirement.

That appeared to be it on the matter, either Dumbledore didn't know anymore or the rest of his notes were kept in a much more secure area, probably the latter, and so Harry decided to look through the rest of the paperwork, and finding nothing interesting, turned his attention to the rest of the desk. He tried to pull open the first draw, but doing so merely caused several runes to light up and the draw to stay firmly shut.

Kneeling down to take closer look at the runic sequences, Harry slowly worked out what it meant. The draw was impervious to all attempts to destroy it and any major attempts that might succeed would cause the interior of the draw to be vanished. Another set prevented the draw from opening by another other attempt than being unlocked, and the lock itself was impervious to destruction or magical attempts to unlock it. The only way in was to unlock it with the key.

'Or,' Harry considered, as he pulled his lockpicks from his pocket, 'Other muggle methods of opening it.' Whilst much more complicated than the lock which had held Fluffy in the third floor corridor, it was still a rather old lock, and only slightly more complicated than the one that used to hold him in his cupboard at the Dursleys.

Ten minutes of frustration later and the lock finally popped open, and Harry carefully pulled out the draw. He wasn't quite sure what he was expecting, but a small book, a folded cloak and a wand with a series of strange bumps on it were not it. Still if Dumbledore held these items so securely then they must be worth something to him, and perhaps would be worthy of being stolen.

He picked up the book first and carefully opened it to the first page. He was rather surprised by the childish writing within proclaiming it to be the 'Private Diary of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, aged 7 ¼, so stay out! That means you Abe!' but flicking through the pages showed the book to be apparently endless, even if it looked only a centimetre thick. Flipping through he started looking for the dates that he had withdrawn money from his vaults, hoping to see what reason the man had for being such a thief. Finding the entries he was looking for he settled down in the Headmaster's chair and started to read.

'_**11**__**th**__** December 1981,**_

_It has been only a few months since young Neville's defeat of Tom Riddle, but already his Death Eaters are proclaiming their innocence and palms greased by galleons are seeing them released. Whilst House Longbottom is putting the weight behind the justice system we still lack the funds to counteract the combined efforts of the dark side Houses._

_Whilst Frank and Alice are working hard and using as much money as they can to combat the corruption in the ministry, they will soon drive their House to destitution. With this in mind I have dipped into the few funds that James and Lily had left, set aside for Harry's use and schooling at Hogwarts. With their passing however, there is no way to refill these vaults now, but hopefully I will find a way to repay what I owe to the young Mister Potter.'_

'_**2**__**nd**__** September 1982,**_

_Again I have been forced to draw on the Potter Vaults, this time to prevent Bellatrix Lestrange from avoiding Azkaban. I still have yet to replace the funds in the Potter Vaults but with the sale of the last of my family's relics I fear I may have to do so again.'_

'_**29**__**th**__** June 1983,**_

_This is the third time I have had to withdraw funds from the Potter Vaults and I have now moved Mister Potter onto the list of children who may use the Under-Privileged Children's Fund to attend Hogwarts, although that only removes a little guilt from my shoulders. The only good news is that Rabastan and Rodolphus Lestrange will not be leaving Azkaban, despite Lucius' best efforts.'_

'_**15**__**th**__** March 1984,**_

_I had thought I had seen the last time I would have to dip into the Potter Vaults but alas, I was wrong. It would seem that Antonin Dolohov was biding his time, gold and influence until recently, when he began a massive push to see himself released from Azkaban. I have managed to make it so that he was not successful but this has left the Potter Vaults almost dry, with young Harry having no money to draw upon. I can only be glad that Lily's sister, Petunia, agreed to take him in, otherwise he would be coming to Hogwarts in rags._

_I hope James and Lily can forgive me.'_

Harry stared at the entries, tapping his fingers lightly on the spine of the diary. Whilst he was angry that Dumbledore had withdrawn funds from his vaults, he was glad it had been used for good purpose. He had read of Dolohov and the Lestranges and they were some of the worst criminals to have ever existed. All four of them had multiple counts of murder to their name and had shown no regret, only pleasure, at the killings they had committed.

It would have been easier if Dumbledore had drawn out the funds for his own nefarious purposes, that would have made him easy to hate, but Harry couldn't say he wouldn't do the same in his position. It wouldn't stop him from _appropriating _some of Dumbledore's things, an eye for an eye after all, but he would feel a little guilty about it.

Another entry caught his eye, a reference to his name pulling his attention to it.

'_**19**__**th**__** September 1981,**_

_James' cloak is a fascinating piece of magic, it appears to be pristine even though he assures me it has been in his family for centuries and that he will pass it down to young Harry when the time comes. It reminds me of my old studies into the Hallows, but if I can replicate some of its effects it could be very useful to the Order._

_And it does explain how he and the other Marauders avoided being caught during their pranks...'_

That nefarious old bastard!

Pulling the cloak from the bottom of the draw he draped it around himself, and his suspicions were confirmed when he disappeared. Dumbledore had known this had been his by birthright, and he had been attending Hogwarts for two years already, so why had he not returned it?

The cloak was strange though, he felt surprisingly safe under it, even though he hadn't moved from his position on Dumbledore's chair and the urge to explore without being seen was huge.

He pulled it off and the sensation vanished. Carefully pulling it back on he sighed as he felt the feeling reappear. Was there anything in the magical world that did exactly what it said it would, and didn't have some hidden purpose?

He paused a moment and picked up Dumbledore's diary again. He hadn't paid attention to it the first time but there was a section...

'_...I can only be glad that Lily's sister, Petunia, agreed to take him in...'_

Harry's fingers tightened on the book and he clenched his jaw in anger. Petunia agreed to take him in? By the sounds of that it had been Dumbledore who had seen to it that he would be staying there. His mood did not get better as he flipped back towards the date of his parents' death and found the entry corresponding to it.

Dropped off on the doorstep? No wonder she had hated him.

Still it had been Dumbledore who had seen to it that he would grow up there and for that, Harry was going to take anything he wanted.

He turned his attention to the last of the items in the draw, the wand with the odd bumps. It was obviously of some value to the Headmaster, even if it wasn't his wand, although he didn't know why he wouldn't keep it on him at all times, it wasn't as if having multiple wands was a bad thing?

Picking it up revealed why Dumbledore didn't keep it with him, it was the same as the cloak, only much more violent, he could feel it calling to him, muffled as if from great distance, but calling to him none the less to use it, to release its power upon the world, to rend and tear, and watch the world die around him.

Harry shivered, but decided to keep the wand. He wouldn't use it in class, Dumbledore would quickly notice that he was using a wand he had locked away, but perhaps he would test it out in the forest. He had come across the statement that 'the wand chooses the wizard' but had found that any wand would work for anyone, if much reduced. He had thought about getting his own wand, but they were expensive, and right now he didn't have the money to spare.

The wand he had been pretending to use for the last two years was useless now, from the description given in the books it appeared he had critically overloaded the wand core and eventually killed it, in a way. But to be honest, he was quite happy not using a wand, merely giving the illusion of it, after all he could never truly be disarmed, unlike the majority of other people in the castle.

Still, he didn't want it to be obvious he had stolen this stuff, he doubted it would take long for Dumbledore to find who had done it if he knew he had been robbed, so he quickly transfigured a piece of paper into each object, pouring enough magic into them to keep them the same shape for years. As long as Dumbledore didn't touch them and realise they didn't call to the user like the real ones would, he should be fine.

Or the fact they didn't work, that was a pretty big give away.

A quickly casted _Tempus _revealed that the feast would soon be ending, and that he should return to his dorm, lest he wanted to be discovered. He stowed the wand and cloak under his robes, then return the diary to the draw and relocking it. A quick look round revealed no obvious signs of his presence and it was the work of a moment to remount his broom and fly out of the window, back towards the Gryffindor Tower.

* * *

**Great Hall**

Dumbledore watched from the staff table as the students slowly started to drift back to their dorms. Other than the near fight between young Neville and Draco Malfoy-Black, the feast had been rather quiet. The two of them had almost ended up declaring a feud in the middle of the hall, both backed up by members of their house, and it was only his and the staff's intervention that prevented the matter from escalating.

"Minerva, may I ask where is Mr. Potter this evening?" the headmaster asked his deputy quietly.

"He will be in the dormitories, Albus," she replied archly, "Just as he is every year. Would you care to ask why?"

"No," he replied mournfully, half to himself and half to the woman sat next to him, sharing his sad expression, "I think I can guess why..."

* * *

**26****th**** November 1993 – Forbidden Forest**

While the next few weeks found Harry fairly busy, he took the time to visit the forest again. Whilst he had tried to speak with the basilisk after he had accidently released her - she lacked the red crest that the males did – but she had completely ignored him, preferring to concentrate on whatever animal was nearby and try to eat them.

Still she had been locked in a dungeon for the better part of a millennia, so he couldn't really blame her for being a little hungry.

Now though he was trying to find her. A short conversation with Aragog had revealed that she had attacked his spawn and a great deal of them had been eaten, but that they had not seen her for several weeks and they were all the better for it. She had been easy enough to follow before the holidays, long tracts of forest having been crushed by her passing, but those sections had quickly been overgrown and none of them looked particularly new.

That had led him to his current situation, following a floating set of lights down the long pipe that would bring him into the Chamber of Secrets. It was just as dank as he remembered, but now he took the chance to have a proper look round and found he was rather amused. Salazar Slytherin must have had one of an ego given the number of statues of him around, and a major obsession with snakes, which he wasn't really surprised at.

Still he was glad he hadn't tried to mix the two together. Salazar the Lamia would be more than he could take.

He was sure however that last time he had been here there hadn't been a large pile reaching halfway to the ceiling and across most of the floor, which was apparently made of some sort of leather like material in distinct layers...

He shook his head and readjusted his perspective. The pile became the Basilisk, curled up in the centre of the Chamber. Although, he wasn't sure you could use the word curled for something that would struggle to fit all of itself into the Great Hall. He looked over her again, still trying to properly get a grip of just how big she was, and found that he couldn't. His mind just wasn't build to understand how a creature of that magnitude could possibly survive, given that she appeared not to have left the Chamber of Secrets for hundreds of years.

He doubted the House Elves would feed her.

He walked carefully over to her, towards the Hagrid sized object that appeared to be her tongue flickering in and out of her mouth, just in time to catch it pause and her huge eyes flick open.

Harry froze, clamping his eyes tightly shut and throwing his hands over his face, desperately trying to forget the image of that strangely obscured eye and the fact that the gaze of a Basilisk was deadly and killed all that met it...

But he had, hadn't he? He had seen that great eyelid lift up, seen those huge eyes regard him with slight curiosity and major boredom. He carefully opened his eyes and peered though his fingers at the basilisk who was regarding him with amusement now, just in time to see her rise up and open her mouth wide, displaying each of those glistening poison covered fangs...

She was yawning he realised, and made it look so threatening he almost ran, but as she lowered her head back to rest atop her coils and her eyes turned to watch him again, a thought crystallised in his mind. It would explain why she had returned here, why she hadn't killed him, why she didn't mind staying in the Chamber for century after century...

"You're lazy, aren't you? Really, truly lazy," he said as the pieces fell into place, "you simply don't care as long as you can stay curled up and sleeping..."

She nodded lazily and lifted up her tail to make a shooing gesture towards him.

"Can I ask what you name is though," he said but realising the stupidity of that statement added, "Write it in the dust, there's plenty around, with the tip of you tail, I can't keep referring to you as 'The Basilisk.'"

She appeared to sigh and slowly moved her tail over to the wall and gently drew a load of squiggles. Harry stared at them, then tilted his head to the side and squinted. He didn't know why but he got the odd feeling that they would be pronounced as a series of hisses, they had an almost serpentine quality to them.

Still, he had no idea what she had written.

"In English, please?"

She sighed again, but dutifully moved he tail over to a different section of wall and much slower wrote it out in English. It was much shorter than its, apparently Parselhand, counterpart although it had way to many S's than a respectable word should have.

"So, your name's Ssesseena?" he asked, desperately trying to wrap his tongue around it.

She nodded and lifted her tail up again, this time using it to push him towards the pipe that led to the forest, before making another shooing gesture and closing her eyes.

"Right," he said, "I'll leave you to your beauty sleep then."

A few minutes' walk later found him back in the dappled sunlight of the Forbidden Forest. He still had plenty of time until he had to get back to the castle for his Arithmancy class. It wasn't overly difficult, similar to maths had been at primary school along with the magical significance of certain numbers and how those related to other subjects, such as potions and Runes.

He put his hand into his robes and drew then wand he had stolen from Dumbledore's office, trying to ignore the urge the start casting spells like a madman. Well, perhaps one spell wouldn't hurt...

He raised his hand and point the wand towards one of the trees nearby, wondering how much power he could put through the wand and whether it would be able to handle the stress.

"_Reducto!_"

He blinked and stared at the tree, the call of the wand momentarily silenced, before he turned his eyes to the wand and carefully put it away, making sure that the tip pointed away from him at all times.

He was used to punching fist sized holes in the tree but with the wand he had left a crater four feet across and a two feet deep in the old tree which was now in the process of colapsing. He struggled for a moment to release the wand but used what little Occlumency he could to clamp down on the voice and force it out of his mind, letting out a sigh of relief as his fingers left the handle of the wand.

He decided it would probably be better to stick with wandless magic for the time being as, while the power boost was excellent, he didn't really need it and he didn't want to have to deal with the wands temptations every time he wanted to cast a spell.

He checked the time again and, with plenty still to spare, decided to visit the rest of the forest. It had been a while since he had truly explored the forest, most of being known to him now but it would be nice to meet all the different groups again.

It took him longer than he expected to find anyone, most of the creatures appearing to stay away from the exit of the Chamber of Secrets, they were probably more sensible than he was, Harry thought. His musings on his own stupidity were interrupted by the sound of hooves and Calypso cantering into sight.

Harry desperately tried to keep eye contact with her, but puberty had hit both of them hard.

She giggled and bounced up and down on the spot a little.

"Nice to see you too, Calypso," Harry said, redness infusing his cheeks.

"Perv," She replied lightly, running her eyes up and down Harry's body, "Although you have grown rather nicely..."

"Keep talking Kettle, Pot's a' listening,"

She stared at him blankly for a moment, then asked, "Is that one of those human things? Because I don't get it,"

"It means you're a hypocrite."

"But I don't have any wings..."

"Hypocrite, Calypso, not Hippogryph," Harry replied, rolling his eyes as he did so.

"Ah, don't be mean, Harry," she said pressing herself up against his back, or what would have been his back if it weren't for her height advantage, "you know you love it."

"Ah, yes, well..." he blushed again, cursing his hormones.

"Sorry Harry," she giggled, as she began to canter off, shaking both sets of hips, "But you're not my type."

"Oh, thank god..."

* * *

**1****st**** December 1993 – Entrance Hall**

Harry waited impatiently in the queue, waiting for Filch to check everyone's' permission forms for the Hogsmeade weekend. He had almost forgotten about the permission slips, but when Professor McGonagall reminded them he had quickly forged Vernon's signature and handed it to her.

She hadn't even looked at it twice.

Ignoring Filch's glare, the man had been on his case ever since he had discovered Harry wasn't actually a Squib and had tried to punish him for the smallest misdemeanours, he headed down the path and out of the gates, following the other third years and above towards the small village. It was a decent day for it, he thought, as he wandered past Hagrid's hut, Buckbeak tethered up outside.

An hour or so later and he found himself rather disappointed.

There were a few shops, but nothing he couldn't apparate to in Diagon Alley, Madam Puddifoots was most definitely _not _to his taste and The Three Broomsticks was so crowded he could barely move.

It wasn't until he wandered to the outskirts that he spotted a rather dirty sign for The Hogs Head and ducking inside he found that the inside was no different. The floor looked like bare earth and the windows were so encrusted with dirt they might as well have not bothered. The tables were badly lit my candles and, other than the bartender, the only patron was a sniffling Hagrid.

Harry frowned at him for a moment, then headed to the bar.

"Pint, please," he asked the bartender.

He stared at Harry for a moment then grunted, "You of age, lad?"

"You care?" Harry replied with a raised eyebrow.

"No," the barman said, a grin splitting his face that revealed a set of yellow stained teeth, "But don't let my brother catch you."

"Someone I would know?"

"I'm Aberforth, Lad," he laughed, handing Harry his pint, "Aberforth ... Dumbledore."

"Right," Harry drawled, as he turned away from the bar, "I'm Harry Potter, and I'd like to think I can handle one pint without making a fool of myself."

He ignored Aberforth's barking laughter and headed over towards Hagrid, wondering why he was nursing his pint with reddened eyes.

"You alright, Hagrid?" he asked, dropping into the seat next to him.

Hagrid shook his head and, with a sob, pulled a letter out one of his many pockets and pushed it over the table to Harry. He frowned and opened it, smoothing out the scrunches.

'_Dear Mr. Hagrid,' _it read,

'_Further to our inquiry into the attack by a Hippogriff on a student in your class, we have accepted the assurances of Professor Dumbledore that you bear no responsibility for the regrettable incident. However, we must register our concern about the Hippogriff in question. We have decided to uphold the official complaint of Mr. Draco Malfoy-Black, the Lord Black, and due to the creatures unprovoked attack on a member of the Nobility, it has been decided that the Hippogryph be kept tethered and isolated at all times, until the date of its execution on 6__th__ June.'_

Harry drummed his fingers on the table and took a gulp of his drink. This, this was bad news. He knew Malfoy was Lord Black, he wouldn't shut up about his newly inherited wealth, but he didn't realise he had enough influence to simply declare that Buckbeak was a dangerous creature and should be executed.

He didn't for one moment believe that Buckbeak deserved this, it was after all Malfoy's fault he was injured and the wound was hardly life-threatening, and it was obviously important to his friend. He wasn't going to sit here and let them do this.

"Cheer up, Hagrid," he said, a little angry that Malfoy would hold this over Hagrid's head for so long, "We've got a few months to figure out how to save Buckbeak."

"Wha'?" Hagrid replied, looking down at Harry with tears in his eyes, "But they wan' ta execute Buckbeak!"

"I know," Harry said, his mind already starting to look for answer, "But we're not going to let them. We can't protest it, we don't have the influence, nor can we attempt to stop them, they'll just try again. We have to let them think they've succeeded, but how..."

"T'ank ya, Harry," Hagrid said, wiping the tears from his eyes, "I should'a know you'd be able ta 'elp..."

"You're a friend, Hagrid," Harry replied absently, "I'll always help my friends, but we're not out of the woods yet..."

* * *

**23****rd**** January 1994 – Room of Requirement**

"Ahhh!"

*Thump*

"Ouch." Harry deadpanned, lying upside down against the wall.

He was in the Room of Requirement practicing a few of his spells while he waited for his Bruise Curing Potion to finish brewing. Snape had been just as childish as always so far and he had no belief that he would get better. The potion needed to rest for two hours before he could begin the next stage and while waiting for it he had caught sight of the broom he had taken earlier in the year, more specifically the runes along it.

It hadn't taken him long to identify them, the broom was rather old and only used the basic runic sequences, and he was wondering if he could replicate them. There were various ones that allowed the broom to fly as well as those for braking and steering, but what had interested him were the ones that powered it.

There was a small set that drew in a minor amount of magic from the rider that was used to activate the rest of the power charms, a bit like an electric starter on a car. This was connected to a much more complex set of major rune clusters that drew in the vast amount of Wild magic required to power all of the rest of the runes that kept the broom working and in the air.

His mind had wandered to the issue of unsupported flight, an aim of wizards since magic was first discovered, and while most were happy with broomsticks there were many who had pursued the matter. They had concluded that unsupported flight was nearly impossible due to the huge amounts of magical power needed, and that trying to gain additional power from the environment through similar runes to the brooms was a big no-no.

It hadn't stopped some of them from trying though and their colleagues descriptions of overloaded magical cores exploding was not the most pleasant of reading. That much, primarily Wild, magic running through a person's body would affect so many random changes that they could never hope to survive.

But Harry had power to spare, and decided to see if he could follow through on any of their discarded suggestions that they simply couldn't power. And it had worked, he had been flying for a short while, well, more hovering but still, until he had tried moving and then he had hit a snag.

It was ridiculously hard to control.

His first attempt had caused him to fall out of the air, an effect followed by his second and third attempts, but after that his magic seemed to take an obscene glee in flinging him into the walls, ceiling and floor indiscriminately. He was covered in bruises and had never been more grateful for his foresight in starting to brew a Bruise Curing Potion.

Giving a slight moan he righted himself and pulled himself over towards one of the seats, planning to cover the room in Cushioning Charms next time. He wasn't going to give up just yet, after all, flying unsupported would be pretty damn awesome.

He picked up one of his books and turned to one of the other things he wanted to learn that would be damn awesome.

_Fiendfyre._

After he had found the reference to it in Dumbledore's office he had looked it up, not only wondering what it was, but also wanting to learn it, in case he ever came across one of Voldemort's Horcruxes. And he was glad he had, _Sentient Animals_ made of _Hellfire,_ which was about as awesome as it got, really.

One of the books had described it as a dark spell, as it was likely to turn on an unskilled wielder and run rampant, while another said that it simply required a great deal of control. He had started learning the counter charm, an even more complex piece of magic, before attempting to summon _Fiendfyre, _he didn't want to burn anything down just yet.

At least, not anything he didn't intend to.

* * *

**18****th**** March 1994 - Corridors**

Harry was one of the last out of the Ancient Runes classroom - only Granger left in their talking to Professor Babbling - having taken quite a bit of care folding up his parchment. He felt he was getting very close to finishing the runic sequences he'd been developing for his clothes, he wasn't like the rest of the class, all of them having trouble remembering the runes and how they could be linked together, the only thing holding him back was how neatly he could draw the runes.

On parchment they were fine, he could draw them no problem, but he that wasn't the same as sewing them into cloth. He'd always been bad at sewing, his own was barely enough to hold Dudley's hand-me-downs together, and incorrectly drawn runes often had bizarre consequences.

They had also briefly touched on wards, permanent ones could be made by tying various runic sequences to a wardstone, an object premade to draw in Wild magic and power them with it, or by your own Power-Supplying sequences. There were also temporary wards, ones tied to a wizards magical core and powered by a wizards own magic, but these were much weaker and more dependent on the caster.

He paused a moment as Brown, Patil and Granger passed him giggling something about Divination, although Granger seemed rather less enamoured with it. He stared after the three of them for a moment, Granger's bushy head of hair in particular, before backtracking to the classroom he had just left, never letting his gaze leave the three of them.

He pushed the door open to see Professor Babbling still talking to Granger and quickly whipped his head back round to the three girls just turning left at the corner at the end of the corridor, the bushy head of hair still next to Patil and Brown's own.

He turned back to the Runes classroom to see Granger packing her stuff up, her conversation with the Professor apparently over, and wondered _what the hell _he had just seen. Granger didn't have a twin, he would have noticed her during their sorting, and he didn't know how the hell else there could be two of them...

His train of thought was stopped in its tracks as she walked across his path from the corridor on the _right_, the one in the classroom still _behind_ him and the one with Patil and Brown having turned _left_ at the end of the corridor...

"Oh god," he muttered, wondering if the Room of Requirement was a safe enough place to hide, "They're multiplying, now there's three of them..."

* * *

**2****nd**** May 1994 – Room of Requirement**

Harry threw a set of scales over his shoulders, muttering to himself, as he hunted through the rubbish in the Room Of Hidden Things. He had settled on a plan to save Buckbeak and, convoluted as it was, it seemed to be his only chance to save the poor Hippogryph. If he could make a fake Hippogryph, this was the part where Hagrid had stared at him like he was a little retarded, and tie that outside Hagrid's hut, then they would execute that and Buckbeak would life on under an permanent Colour-Changing Charm.

It was the a little of the mechanics of it that were still eluding him though, he had most of the materials, some from Hagrid and others from the Room of Hidden Things. He was relying on the executioner going for Buckbeak's neck, he couldn't believe they go for anything else and had set up the runes accordingly.

He had started with a rocking horse and cut of the head and neck, then added a pair of planks of wood to act as the wings. Various runic sequences had been carved into the wood to allow it to look and feel like a Hippogryph, feathers and all. With these he was left with the headless body of a Hippogryph, and it looked incredibly realistic, the only problem being the lack of movement. The head had been made similarly and both pieces had then been animated to act like a Hippogryph.

Or as close as Harry could make it.

They hadn't covered runes to imbue sentience yet, and Harry was leery to try something that could go wrong at such a critical time, not to mention he would have to be able to stop all of its motion at any time to give the illusion it had died. Right now he had a head and body that acted just like a Hippogryph, the only problem was how to connect them.

He couldn't use runes, when the axe fell it would sever the sequence and they would they fail, exposing the charade. That left spelling them by hand, and that would have to be done only shortly before the event, given the amount of power that would be required to keep such a breadth of spells going for such a long period of time. Currently Hagrid had a great lump of meat that they had cut in the approximate shape of Buckbeak's neck under a stasis Inscription in his hut.

The only problem was keeping all the spells going on the neck whilst still controlling the rest of the body. Harry had been practicing but it was still really difficult to keep his attention split so many ways. If it hadn't been for the Occlumency he doubted he would have ever managed.

He sighed in frustration and stomped over to where he had found his broomstick all those months ago. He had gotten better at the unaided flying but he really needed open space to practice. In frustration he bumped into the old statue with the tiara on its head, knocking the discoloured old thing to the floor. He went to pick it up but just before his hands touched it he noticed the words etched upon it.

'_Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.'_

He paused. He had heard that somewhere, it was one of Rowena Ravenclaws most famous quotes, said to be carved on her lost Diadem.

He stared at it for a moment, then carefully drew his hand back. If it was the Horcrux he thought it was, he didn't really want to touch it. He tried levitating it for a moment, but for some reason any magic he directed at it just slid off the surface.

'_The muggle way it is then_,' he thought, pulling his cloak off and wrapping it around his hands.

He picked it up gently and moved back towards the door, slowly and carefully. He peeked outside and after several long looks stepped outside and began pacing in front of the door.

'_I need a room that I can safely destroy a Horcrux with Fiendfyre in. I need a room that I can safely destroy a Horcrux with Fiendfyre in. I need a room that I can safely destroy a Horcrux with Fiendfyre in.'_

He pushed the door open and entered into what had to be the dour room ever. It was completely grey, with only several dull lights set in the walls to illuminate it. There was a small pedestal just a few feet from the far wall and Harry imagined this was where he was supposed to put the Horcrux.

He quickly moved towards it and placed it on the pedestal, glad to get it out of his hands. He stepped back until he was only a few feet from the door then drew the stolen wand, deciding that he would probably need the extra power. He ignored the calls as best he could and levelled the wand at the diadem, then calmed himself and began calling his magic.

"_Fiendfyre!_" he called out, eyes glowing with power.

He could feel the heat coming off of the spell as a great tongue of flame shot out of his wand before it coalesced into a set of magical creatures. There was a larger Norberta on his right, Fluffy on his left and the great bulk of Ssesseena between them. Each was made of deep orange flames and he could feel three presences in his mind trying to free themselves from his control.

He clamped down them, gritting his teeth in determination and commanded them to destroy the Horcrux in the Diadem. They resisted for a moment but Harry pored all his willpower into the spell allowing the magic of the wand to call even more forth.

Then they all rushed forward and enveloped the pedestal in the fiery conflagration that was left in their passing, the Diadem quickly melting and giving a brief high-pitched scream that was suddenly cut off. The three fiery beast turned and regarded Harry for a moment before beginning to move towards him.

"NO!" he shouted out, tightening his vice grip over the curse, "You! Obey! Me!"

His eyes briefly glowed brighter and the creatures stepped back, Harry quickly taking the opportunity to cancel the curse out. He looked around at the room, the walls still glowing cherry red from the heat of the spell and the pedestal and Diadem so much mixed up slag.

He let out a sigh of relief and relaxed his body and magic, stowing the stolen wand away again before it could take advantage of his weakened state of mind. He smiled and left the room, beginning the arduous journey and pulling his tired body back to the Gryffindor Tower and his soft, comfortable bed.

"Mum, Dad, Sirius and Remus," he said softly, a soft, satisfied smile on his face, "That was for you, a piece of Voldemort's soul, dead for you..."

* * *

**20****th**** June 1994 – Hogwarts Grounds**

Harry hurried down to Hagrid's hut flexing his wrist, hoping that the stiffness would go away. He had just finished the Runes exam, Professor Babbling asking each of them to draw a runic sequence from scratch, with marks awarded for difficulty and neatness. Harry had started out with the sequence he used to auto-size and self-repair his clothes, the same sequence that had finally been sewn onto all his clothes, though he was glad he had made use of a transfigured thimble.

He had then gone on to expand the sequence into colour and texture changing, something he had yet to add to his own clothes, the end result looking like a spiders web emanating from the centre of the page, with sections for going down the arms and legs of the clothes, almost like their own skeleton. Each cluster had been carefully labelled with their purpose and position and he had been rewarded with a shocked expression from Professor Babbling.

He took great pride in that.

His mind however was now firmly on the task ahead, namely saving Buckbeak from the Ministry and Malfoy's meddling. Hagrid had told him that they would be executing Buckbeak shortly after dinner and so he only had a short amount of time to get everything in position. He hadn't told Hagrid of the plan, only that he had one, and not to worry if Buckbeak appeared to die.

Hagrid was his best friend, but honestly the man couldn't keep a secret for love nor money.

Luckily Harry had moved all of the parts of his fake Hippogryph into the forest earlier in the evening, so he only had to assemble it and swap it with the real Hippogryph. He moved towards the forest, Hagrid's hut coming into view, then stopped dead.

Several people were outside, Hagrid, Dumbledore, the execution and a man in a lime green bowler hat, among them. He cursed and sprinted towards the forest, reaching it just as the group of people entered Hagrid's hut. He grabbed the pieces of Hippogryph and pulled the invisibility cloak over himself, ignoring its whisperings as always, before moving as quickly and quietly over to Buckbeak as he could.

He dropped the fake Hippogryph pieces in the pumpkin patch and snatched at the knot tethering the rope around Buckbeak's neck. It took him a few moments to get it off, desperately wishing he had gotten here earlier and ignoring the few snatches of conversation he could here from inside the hut.

"Right," he muttered to himself, patting Buckbeak and drawing his attention to Harry's floating head, "Go wait by the forest, Buckbeak, I'll be there in a moment."

Buckbeak looked a little offended for a moment but acquiesced and moved out of the way as Harry cancelled the Stasis sequence on the piece of meat, tied the rope around it and used a pair of ticking charms to stick the head to it and it to the body. He checked it over than started casting the spells on the meat, quickly matching the colour of the feathers to those he had already done.

Keeping those spells in mind and magic, he activated the others on the body and brought the now completed animal under his mental control. He turned to Buckbeak and the forest just as the door to the hut opened, and he sprinted to the tree line, Buckbeak following, and taking care to keep the magic running to the spells on the fake Hippogryph.

He moved deep enough to the forest that he should be hard to spot but not far enough that he would lose sight of the hut and the fake Hippogryph. He watched as the Executioner untied Buckbeak and pulled him over to once side, Hagrid worrying his coat between his hands and Dumbledore looking on the proceedings with a blank expression.

He let the man pull the Fake forward a little, then made it dig its legs in for a moment before letting him pull it into position. He could quite make out what happened next from the distance he was at, but it looked like he was tying the Fake up with rope. Then he fetched his axe, a huge thing that looked more intimating than it could possibly be effective, and swung it up, over his head and down onto the neck of the Fake Hippogryph.

The moment that the axe struck, Harry severed the magic keeping the Hippogryph sentient, leaving what appeared to be a Hippogryph corpse cooling in the dirt. He could hear Hagrid burst into tears, his wails easily carrying to where Harry was stood with Buckbeak, and wished that he hadn't had to deceive his friend like this, but knew that Hagrid would have blurted something out at the wrong moment.

The executioner and the other Ministry employees left soon after, Dumbledore clapping Hagrid on the shoulder and appearing to offer his condolences before sweeping after them. Harry waited until they were out of sight, then a moment longer, then headed out of the forest and towards where Hagrid was stood crying, taking off the cloak as he did so.

"Hagrid," he said gently, "You can stop crying now."

"'Ow can I 'Arry!" he cried, great tears sliding down his face, "'Ow coul' t'ey execute poor Buckbeak, 'e was innocent!"

"Oh, ye of little faith, Hagrid," Harry said with a smile, gesturing to where Buckbeak could be seen by the edge of the forest, "Have I ever let you down?"

"Bu' 'ees, I saw 'em," Hagrid started, his tears stopping and his eyes switching between the fake corpse and Buckbeak, "T'ank ya 'Arry, t'ank ya so much, I don' know wha' ta say..."

"I never let my friends down, Hagrid" Harry replied, "Now, you bury, uh, _Buckbeak _and I'll be in the forest with the rest of the herd, introducing them to ... _Witherwings."_

"Witherwings it is!" Hagrid laughed, wiping the rest of the tears from his face.

"Right, I'd better go in case they come back," Harry shouted over his shoulder as he headed towards the forest, "And don't tell anyone!"

He left Hagrid's laughing form behind him as he jogged over to Buckbeak, the Hippogryph watching him with something approaching amusement, and the two of them headed deeper into the forest.

Harry smiled to himself as he moved from tree to tree, Buckbeak's cantering from keeping pace with him below. The full moon was coming up and provided more than enough illumination for the two of them, even if it did cause deep shadows to form. It did not take them too long to find the herd again, they had not moved to far from the clearing he had found them in last year, and they welcomed Buckbeak back, even if he was apparently teased by his fellow herd members about his new colouration.

Sharpbeak bowed to Harry and Harry returned the gesture, the leader of the herd grateful that Harry had kept one of his own safe from those that would see them harmed. He reared up on his hind legs and let loose a great cry at the sky, a cry echo by the rest of the herd, before they turned and cantered deeper into the gloom of the forest.

Harry smiled, looking up at the full moon, the only illumination in the sky, and listening to the cry of the wolves...

"Oh," Harry groaned after a moment, "Shite."

And then he was off, heading through the trees at a decent pace, hoping to get away from any of the wolves before they came too close. Werewolves were fast, perhaps not unicorn level fast but fast none the less, and he didn't want to test if his Listeners gift would work on something that was, at heart, a human who had been cursed, rather than a true animal.

He pushed off a tree, spun in mid air and fired off a _reducto_ at the nearest target, a large grey werewolf who was leading the four of them towards him, and completed his spin, landing on the ground and continuing to run without missing a beat. He couldn't keep it up though, he had been using magic all day for the exams followed by animating the Fake Hippogryph and he was tired magically.

Still he wasn't physically tired and he was very glad he had kept himself in decent shape, vaulting a fallen tree and jumping up into the lower branches of the trees. He could hear the wolves though, and by the sounds of it they were catching him, even if they couldn't reach him, he would have to come down from the canopy eventually.

He cursed in every language he was fluent in, from French to Futhark, as his path led him towards a clearing in the forest, strangely illuminated by two cones of light, and with no way to deviant from it. He was close enough to the ground that the wolves could snag him with a leap so he couldn't afford to slow down or stop and he had only one last hope.

He pushed off of the last branch and pulled on the last few dregs of his magic. It took only a moment to begin the spells and for a brief moment he was flying through the air, more natural than any broomstick, the air flowing smoothly past him...

And then he ran out of magic, and out of the sky.

He was barely halfway across the clearing when it happened and he fell on top of an odd mound, above and slightly short of the points of the two cones of light that illuminated the edge of the clearing he had been trying to reach.

He quickly pushed himself to his feet and drew the pair of goblin blades that were strapped to his legs, holding them reverse style, knowing he would need the extra leverage against the strength of a werewolf. He fended off the first werewolf that leaped at him by ducking under its claws as it flew over him and lashing out at its stomach, leaving a shallow cut across it.

It was then that the mound started to vibrate and made some rather familiar noises, almost like an engine starting up...

Harry stumbled and dropped to all fours as what he now recognised as a Ford Anglia suddenly moved away from where it had been parked. By the looks of it, it was the same car that Weasley and Longbottom had bragged about flying to the school at the beginning of their last year, although its time in the forest had caused it to go native. It was covered in moss and there were various small plants growing on it, not to mention the fact that the suspension had apparently gone along with the windows and one of the doors.

The car was still fast though and they quickly lost the werewolves that had been following him, even as the car swerved from side to side in an attempt to throw him off. It seemed that whatever magic had given the car its sentience had also given it a really bad temper.

Or it didn't like being woken up.

After a few minutes of almost being thrown off by the car it managed its task and Harry found himself rolling down a slight slope as the Ford Anglia spun itself around and drove off back into the gloom. Harry lay there for a moment, magically and physically exhausted, before pushing himself up onto one knee and then upright using one of the boulders scattered about. For a moment he wondered where he was but the long pipe and fallen door embossed with snakes quickly reminded him.

Harry though about heading back to the castle but decided against it when he heard the wolves howl again. It took him a few moments to head down the pipe and enter the Chamber of Secrets, Ssesseena's head lifting off the ground and her first set of eyelids flicking open.

"Do you mind stay here tonight?" Harry ventured slowly, but hastily expanded upon it when her eyes narrowed and her mouth opened slightly, "I just need a place to sleep for tonight, that's all!"

She studied him for a moment, then nodded and lowered her head back down again.

"You're so lazy," Harry stated as he made himself comfortable in a corner, "Although I suppose it's better than the opposite..."

* * *

**21****st**** June 1994**

The next morning had seen Harry wake early and thank Ssesseena for allowing him to stay in her Chamber, for which he gotten a lazy eyelid to open and a hiss of acknowledgement before she went back to sleep, and he had headed into the castle before anyone could have noticed he was missing. The next few weeks were fairly quiet, Harry using the time to surreptitiously move various items out of the Room of Hidden Things and into his trunk.

The jewels he had noticed at the start of the year were one thing, although he didn't know where he was going to sell them, and plenty of books were another, so many that he would have to start on fixing up some space enhancing charms on his tent, or purchase a new one with the money he could earn from the jewels.

He had also gotten a wizarding genealogy, having started to hunt for some of Voldemorts other Horcruxes, and deciding that if he was sentimental enough to have one that belonged to his mother, the Gaunt Family Ring, he might have left it at her home. He had imagined that the home of an old pureblood family like the Gaunts would be a large manor, but according to the book they had fallen on hard times, and so it was a small hovel instead.

He had gotten an address for it as well, or what passed for one, and was planning to look it up in the holidays, along with the name Riddle, as it was apparently a Muggle one. Quite a few of his classmates were going on about the World Cup, so perhaps that would work as a distraction to check out the ministry, and find out if they had any information or artefacts that could be ... _obtained._


	9. Summer Between Years Three and Four

I do not own Harry Potter. Any parts that look like they are from the books or movies probably are.

As a thirteen year old boy given the choice between subtle magics and flashy explosions, I'm fairly sure I would have chosen the explosions as well, especially as Harry didn't really know about manipulation magics.

The bit about House magics is there because _Harry James Potter-Black-Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff-Slytherin-Gryffi ndor-Emrys-whatever-whatever _starts to grate after a while.

As for Daphne, you won't see much more off her yet...

* * *

**29****th**** June 1994 – Kings Cross Station**

Harry stepped of the Hogwarts Express and onto a crowded Platform Nine and Three Quarters. His trunk had been shrunk and placed in his inside jacket pocket, having changed out of his robes and stored them in the trunk on the train. He had sent off a letter to Seizemaul, the Potter account manager, and he had agreed to an appointment later in the day.

Harry headed through the fake pillar and into the muggle part of Kings Cross station, anxious to find a quiet place out of anyone's sight to apparate to Gringotts. He cursed as he did so, another train having only just arrived at Platform Ten, and was forced to go along with the flow of the crowd. A few minutes later he found himself spat out at the exit of the station, businessman after businessman flagging down a cab.

He was in a fairly busy part of London and it wasn't until he had crossed a few bustling streets that he finally found somewhere quiet enough to apparate. He glanced towards the name of the shop next to the alley and paused, an idea coalescing in his mind. He unshrank his trunk and pulled out the Invisibility Cloak, ignoring the urge to explore with his Occlumency.

He'd gotten rather good at it now, thanks to constantly fighting off the call of the Cloak and the subdued call of the Wand, but he wasn't a Master. He'd need to be able to defend himself easily but to do that someone had to constantly assault his mind and where was he going to find someone willing and able to do that?

He peered through the window and when the shop keeper turned his back, opened the door and slid inside. It was a pawn shop of sorts, although it more resembled a jeweller's than anything else with how many precious stones and jewellery was on display, but the shop was pretty close to what he was looking for.

A plan quickly formed in his head. Take off the cloak and sell as many of the gems as he could to the shop keeper, then find another place and repeat. He have to earn a decent amount of cash though with how much Gringotts charged for converting wizarding Galleons to muggle Pounds. Perhaps he could tell the shopkeeper that he had been asked to sell them by a parent or grandparent...

He was about to commence with the plan when he noticed the sign next to the counter, asking for I.D. to be shown for anyone who looked under twenty-five, and that they were sorry for any inconvenience. Harry frowned at that, he didn't look anything close to twenty-five, and he didn't have any aging potions at hand, nor did he know any spells to simulate it.

He drummed his fingers on his arms as he lent back against the wall. Whilst he was glad he had found the hole in his knowledge, it had come at a rather annoying time, and he really needed to change the gems into cash.

He wondered if Seizemaul would be able to help, he had seen the Goblins weighing gems when he was last there, but still the pawnshops were a place to keep in mind. With that he waited for the shopkeeper to turn his back, then quickly silenced the bell, opened the door and slipped back towards the alleyway where he had been planning to apparate. A few moments and the feeling of being forced through a tube later and he was in Diagon Alley, Cloak shoved in one pocket and a bag full of gems in the other.

He strolled down the street and into Gringotts, spitting a greeting to the Goblins guarding the door in Gobbledegook. The goblin looked surprised for a moment then spat back an insult that had Harry laughing all the way up to the counters. Most people were still picking up their children from Kings Cross so it was fairly quiet in the bank.

"I have an appointment with Manager Seizemaul," Harry stated curtly, aware that Goblins didn't like to waste time.

"Heir Potter?" the Goblin replied, a sneer on his face.

"Yes."

"Follow me," The goblin said, flipping the sign on his counter and dropping out of his seat, before striding towards a nearby door.

A few minutes' walk past down the corridor, past more and more bland walls and identical doors found him outside one with Seizemaul's name set into a bronze plaque on it.

"He's waiting." The goblin said before he turned and left, leaving Harry to knock on the door to the room he was standing outside of.

"Enter," came Seizemaul's voice, clearly audible despite the thick oak.

Harry pushed the door open and walked in, taking the seat in front of Seizemaul's desk and waiting for the Goblin to finish reading the document he was holding.

"Afternoon Manager Seizemaul."

"Heir Potter," Seizemaul replied, nodding his head slightly in respect, "You wished to see me?"

"Yes," Harry said, reaching into his pocket and removing the bag full of gems, "Would it be possible to exchange these gems for galleons and invest them in something? I'd rather not leave the money sitting in the vault inactive where ... _someone ... _could get at it."

"Unfortunately not," Seizemaul replied with a sigh, "There can be no investments from an inactive set of vaults such as your own. You could deposit the gems but they would simply stay in the vaults unused until the account was activated."

"I take it the only way to activate the vaults is to become Lord Potter?"

"Indeed," He replied, "But you would have to wait until you are of age."

Harry sat back in his chair and turned the problem over in his mind. Something was niggling at him, something he had only been slightly aware of during the last year, something he had brushed off as an annoyance.

"Seizemaul," He began slowly, "How is it that Draco Malfoy is Lord Black if he is the same age as I am?"

Seizemaul opened his mouth to reply, then frowned and replied slowly, turning his words over as he did so, "I would say that he is lying, but if no one has called him on it...?"

"They haven't," Harry interjected.

"Then it would probably be to do with the separation of powers," Seizemaul continued, before expanding at Harry's confused look, "There are three things needed before anyone can claim the Lordship of a House, Magic, Money and Influence.

The Magic is just that. They must have the Magic of the House and no other. The Money is access to their Vaults, something Gringotts is keen to give in the case of an inactive account. Lastly is the Influence, the seat the House has in the Wizengamot.

This is why I was so surprised, as far as I am aware the Black account is still inactive and so Draco could not be Lord Black. Also you referred to him as a Malfoy, does he still claim both names to himself?"

"Yes," Harry replied after a moment, "He referred to himself as Draco Malfoy-Black, the Lord Black. Is that important?"

"Yes, in fact it is another mark against him being Lord Black. The Magics of a House are exclusive due to old enchantments. To be Lord Black he could not still be a Malfoy, in fact you could be Lord Black since your Grandmother was one, but you would have to give up the name and magic of Potter to do so, and so that brings me to the last part, Influence.

Given that no one has disputed this it is likely that the others houses have forgotten this or glossed over it, so that Malfoy senior could claim the Black Seats and increase the influence he could have on the Wizengamot. He likely bribed the Minister of Magic to pass a law allowing his son to take up the seat."

"In that case," Harry replied, "Can't we benefit from this? I am a member of House Potter, the last in fact, so I have the Magic and you said that Gringotts would be only too keen to reopen dormant vaults. That gives me the Money if I can get the Influence, which this Law might allow be to do, right?"

"I doubt it," Seizemaul replied, "It's likely that it was a singular law, only applying to the Malfoys, the Minister wouldn't have been stupid enough to make a blanket law like that."

"You think that highly of Minister Fudge?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.

The two of them shared a look before Seizemaul sighed and bowed his head.

"I'll check the Charter to see if any new Laws have been passed."

* * *

**A short while later**

It had only been a few minute before Seizemaul returned to his office, a smile on his crooked lips and a spring in his step.

"The Minister was stupid enough to make a blanket Law," He started, walking around to his desk and pulling out several documents and a few books, "The law has gone to being of age for claiming your Lordship to being thirteen, so sigh here and here and will that be all Lord Potter?"

Harry pulled the piece of parchment towards him and signed with the quill in the places Seizemaul had asked, before looking up with a grin on his face.

"Not quite, Manager, I'd like to talk to you about investment opportunities..."

* * *

**A long while later**

Harry walked out of Gringotts a few hours later with a few books under one arm and a satisfied smile on his face. It was getting on a bit and he had yet to set up camp so he turned himself towards the Leaky Cauldron, intending to ask Tom for a room for the night.

In the last few hours he had learnt a great deal about his family's history, the most recent of it from Seizemaul and the more ancient stuff from the book under his arm. The Potter Grimoire was an odd mix between a history book, encyclopaedia, diary and spell book. Notes on spells were squeezed between journal entries from four centuries ago, next to pages on the analysis of a certain magical artefact from eleven centuries ago and breakthroughs in runic sequences from six.

Originally before the founding of any of the Houses, back before even the Celts had really gotten their act together, magic users weren't really organised. They only learnt what they could make up, and as a result, none were very powerful. Eventually like minded wizards and witches with an interest in similar magics joined together, creating loose groups that shared knowledge and pushed each other higher. Their children went on to marry and soon the Houses began to form, each of them specialising in a type of magic.

Those who were of a darker nature became House Black, whilst those who swore to do no harm and heal people became House White. House Bones was formed of Necromancers and others who sought power in death, whilst House Longbottom was made of those Viking mages who came over from their homeland. House Potter had, rather obviously, been makers of magical ceramics and similar. Fortunately some of these specialisations had been lost in the intervening centuries and millennia, otherwise Harry would have been avoiding Susan like the plague.

At this point the Houses had still been accepting people in who had not been born into the House, but as the amount of magic users born outside of the Houses decreased, most Muggleborns not surviving particularly long at this time in history, the practice fell out of fashion, and eventually use altogether.

The House Magics began to from at this stage, both tangible power and inherited knowledge of their specialisation, and the Houses began to become protective of it. They had sought a way to prevent others from stealing from them and that was where House Potter had come in.

Whilst House Potter had originally been potters they had quickly expanded out into other magic storage, and eventually into the creation of pretty much any type of magical artefact and object, as well as a fair amount of non-magical ones. They had created a ward that could be attached to the magics that would prevent anyone from stealing it as one of these wards would repel another.

Unfortunately this had become a problem when it came to marriage between Houses. House Rider and House Breedyr had planned on marry their Heir and Heiress to bind the two houses together politically, and magically, as both Houses agreed to teach the other some of the magics by using the, at the time, out of fashion practice of imbuing someone with the magics of a House. The Potter Ward however prevented this, and as no one wanted to remove it, the Heiress agreed to lose her magical specialisation and gain a new one.

This was where the practice of a dowry originated from for magicals, the cost it would take to retrain the new wife from her old, lost specialisation, to her newly gained one. But, whilst the wife had lost her old talents, she was still very good at breeding magical mounts, better than any of House Rider that she had just joined. Eventually her children were found to be powerful in both areas as well, and the practice of marry politically to gain influence and improve the magical strength of a child was started.

Soon the families couldn't even conceive of the thought of marry someone without that kind of pedigree behind them, although fortunately the size of the Gene pool was large enough that was very little problem, even if each generation did seem to be a little physically weaker, what did that matter to their much improved magical might?

House Potter though never really cared. They didn't really have a specialisation like other Houses did, more the willingness to try anything to create something, although this had led to some problems during their long history.

Most Houses had an alignment, Light, Dark or Neutral. House Potter tended to bounce around randomly, the House's alignment depended on whatever the current Lord Potter, known as the Chief Artificer internally, happened to be building or researching. Harry himself was shaping up to be a Neutral, but his Father and Grandfather had both been Light, whilst his Great-Grandmother was fairly Dark, the generation before was Neutral, then Light, Dark, Dark, Neutral, Light and so on.

This alignment had led to House Potter sometimes fighting Dark Lords, sometimes throwing their weight behind the Dark Lord and sometimes staying out of the conflict altogether, unlike the other Houses who always joined the same side. Sometimes the Dark Lord won but mostly they lost and this led to House Potters fortunes jumping up and down rather rapidly, reaching peaks higher than any other House and then crashing down so much deeper, unlike the slow rise and fall of other Houses.

They had reached another peak just before Grindelwalds had started his reign, Harry's Light aligned Grandfather standing at Dumbledore side as they fought across Europe. It was during this war that the ancestral Potter estate had been destroyed by one of Grindelwalds strike forces, taking a few members of the House with it.

Unlike the other House the estate wasn't a huge mansion surrounded by lush gardens, it was called the Storeyard, and just like its name implied it was a huge warehouse that contained thousands of magical artefacts as well as workshops and tools gathered from throughout the history of the House. A powerful dark curse had hit one of the objects that had been lying there covered in dust and it had reacted _badly_, which had then caused others to react _even worse._

The explosion destroyed the entire estate, the strike force and a large section of the English countryside, something that had been blamed on German bombers.

Still, bits of the Potter legacy were around all the time, in plain sight and everyday use. Several designs of trunk were created by a Potter, as were the wards that hid the Alley from view and harm. In fact it was another Potter ward that appeared to be responsible for the attitude of the Purebloods.

When the Romans invaded Britain they attacked several of the Houses, who despite their magical power were overwhelmed by the disciplined Roman Legions. After a few Houses were wiped out the others decided to simply run and hide if they were attacked, the Romans couldn't keep up with the brooms used to transport entire families out of the battle, their belongings slung underneath them. So the Romans used the only weapon they could against the fleeing brooms, Archers.

Thrown javelins couldn't reach them and were also inaccurate but a few good archers could take out quite a few before they could get out of range. This was the weakness the Potter Anti-Arrow wards were made to cover. The wording was something along the lines of '_prevent any unnatural non-magical object from moving', _and it prevented the archers from firing, giving the magicals time to flee.

For the time this was fine until the attacks stopped and the ward was partially forgotten about. There were very few large attacks on magical communities during medieval times, most being singular burnings, and warfare remained that wizards or archers beat melee troops, which beat cavalry, which beat archers or wizards.

But then came the invention of gunpowder and the almost total abandonment of melee troops and cavalry for ranged infantry, infantry who couldn't fire at magicals in magical communities due to the Anti-Arrow ward. The Magical world was amazed! From their point of view the muggles had seemingly abandoned any possible method they could have of hurting them, and it was from this that their feelings of superiority began to gain dominance. The feeling had always been there, but it was hard to be sure of it when some great burly soldier was about to impale you with a pike.

For the muggles of course it was a different matter, they had long since stopped believing in witchcraft and had a different set of aims whilst the wizards had all forgotten that the wards only worked in the areas they had been places, wizarding communities, and not the entire British isles so there wasn't going to be a successful takeover of the world just yet. It was fortunate that the wards didn't extend very high otherwise there would have been odd patches around the country very aircraft couldn't fly. It had also saved the magical world from a great deal of damage from World War II, apparently there were a large number of bombs that had hit the wards and simply stopped, held there by magic as the ward prevent the '_unnatural non-magical object' _from moving.

Harry wondered if anyone had actually bothered to take them down after the war as he eyed the sky above him carefully before ducking into the Leaky Cauldron.

* * *

**5****th**** July 1994 – Harry's Tent**

Harry had finally gotten around to applying the various rune sequences to his tent. He was about half way through sewing all the sequences he wanted into the inner lining of the tent and it had resulted in some rather strange effects. At one end of the tent the sequences had turned it into a warm and spacious room nearly a dozen meters across whilst the other end was still just a tent.

The area Harry was working on at the moment was between those two and the room seemed to warp down and twist into the cold tent at the other end. As Harry continued to sew the runes into the tent the effect was slowly moving further and further down the sides of the tent and the room warping itself further away.

It was rather odd to look at, and almost painful in a way.

The Potter Grimoire had been very useful in completing the runic clusters that would go into the sequence that had enlarged the room, as well as change the fabric of the tent into wooden walls, whilst keeping a consistently warm temperature and low weight.

It had also brought various items to his attention that his family had found and that he wouldn't mind recreating. The massive magical cannons used to get around their own Anti-Arrow wards as well as improve upon the standard cannon in almost every way had seemed a little outdated until he had looked at another section applying a great deal of those improvements to handheld guns. He still needed to improve upon them though, the various designs had been based off an Enfield pattern 1853 musket, not the most modern of weapons.

Quite why his Great-Grandmother had needed a few thousand muskets that could still work inside the Anti-Arrow wards, Harry didn't think he wanted to know.

* * *

**4****th**** August 1994 – Little Hangleton**

Little Hangleton was a fairly quiet village, a few streets branching off from the village green and local pub, The Lamb, along with a few small shops, whilst the church and cemetery were both a short way away from the village, near the old Riddle Mansion, long since abandoned.

That had certainly peaked Harry's interest. He knew that the House of Gaunt, Voldemort's House, had had their ancestral home near here, and another old home with the same name as Voldemort's supposed surname, he doubted that was a coincidence.

It hadn't taken him long to find out the story from some of the local gossips, even if they had given him some funny looks over his age and the fact he was apparently travelling alone. According to their stories the entire family was murdered by their gardener and handyman, Frank, although there were no signs of death on any of the bodies. They just seemed to have died of fright.

That sounded like the Killing Curse to him.

He had asked about Frank, wondering if he could possibly meet the man, but apparently he had vanished only a week before, not that anyone had really noticed, so it could have been longer. Seeing as that line of enquiry had taken him nowhere he had excused himself and headed out to where the Gaunt home was supposed to be.

The Gaunts had used to own all the land around this area along with a large manor house, but they had been declining for years before they had eventually sold of the house and lands in the early seventeenth century. The manor house had been passed through several hands before it had eventually been lost track of, whilst the Gaunts had kept a small piece of land near a forest and built themselves a home, a home that became smaller and smaller as the amount of Gaunts declined and they sold bits of it off for Galleons.

He had bought an OS map in a bookshop in the town and had a quick look through, spotting a few small forests that might have been the ones near the Gaunt home, if they hadn't concealed it with magic however.

The largest one, and the one he was wandering around now was called Hangleton Forest, situated halfway between Little Hangleton and Greater Hangleton. It was a common route for the locals to walk their dogs, as it was fairly open and Harry had met a couple of them as he walk through the dappled shade trying to find the hidden shack.

After an hour or so he gave it up as a lost cause. He hadn't found nor felt any traces of magic near his criss-crossing paths through the forest, and he was starting to get a few odd looks from a husband and wife he had just walked past for the fourth time. He pulled out the map with a sigh and opened it, hoping there would be another location that fit the description. Fortunately there was a much smaller forest nearby and the name was...

Gauntwood.

"Well," Harry muttered to himself, still staring at the map, "Now I feel silly."

* * *

**Gauntwood**

It hadn't taken Harry long to find Gauntwood and find that it had been well named. The forest was very dense and only a little light met the ground, not that there were any paths for it to illuminate. It wasn't a popular place to walk a dog, being far too overgrown and out of the way.

It also hadn't taken long to find a few traces of magic in the air, all emanating from a Muggle-repelling Ward. He would have written it off as nothing, it felt temporary, like something thrown up for a moments peace and quiet, but the location was too much of a give-away. Still if he hadn't been looking for it he probably would have ignored it.

It took Harry some time to actually reach the edge of the ward, a great many brambles impeding his path, but when he did he was greeting by the sight of a partially overgrown hovel, not something he would have pegged for the Gaunt home but the rotten snakeskin nailed to the door told him it probably was.

He turned his attention to the wards surrounding the property, sure that there had to be more than a single Muggle-repelling ward on the place. He thought about pulling it down, but decided it would be best to leave it up and keep him from being disturbed.

Still there was something not quite right about this ward, its structure was slightly off, it was too large, almost as if it had another purpose even though he couldn't see another purpose...

There.

Intertwined with it was a stealth ward, something designed to conceal other wards placed within it. Something that probably hid all of the really nasty wards. A brief pull on his magic and a moments tweaking of the muggle-repelling ward cancelled it out and revealed all of the really nasty wards. One seemed to summon and enlarge hundreds of snakes, another drained magic and one prevented you from leaving. And those were some of the nicest.

Fortunately all of them were tripwire wards, and he wasn't planning on getting close enough to trigger them. Harry leaned back against a nearby tree and started to ponder how to get round them. He couldn't get close enough to the wardstones to disable them without triggering them, and nor could he suspend that many wards to allow him to get close enough to disable the wardstones. He could probably suspend a dozen or so and take down another three dozen but that still left nearly fifty more that he had no clue with where to start on taking them down. And it was fairly obvious there was a Horcrux here, he could exactly leave it...

Harry paused and wrinkled his brow. There was a Horcrux here and he needed to destroy it. He could only do that with _Fiendfyre, _the only technique that was strong enough to destroy them. _Fiendfyre _was not a precise spell.

He couldn't see anything wrong with that line of thought, nor could he see any wards for fire-proofing, at least, not any that would stand up to _Fiendfyre. _And even if there were, he doubted the wardstones were _Fiendfyre-_proof.

Harry rolled his eyes as he drew his wand, he'd stopped thinking off it as Dumbledore's now, and centred himself. It had gotten easier to through off the voices now and he thanked his attempts at Occlumency for it, although he still didn't like relying on a wand.

"_Fiendfyre."_

Moments later the burning forms of Norberta, Fluffy and Ssesseena appeared, each consisting of a deep, vibrant orange fire, smaller trails of fire quickly catching on nearby plants and trees as they charged towards the hovel. He could see multiple wards being triggered, none of them slowing the _Fiendfyre _in the slightest , although he found himself almost wincing as the summoned snakes were immediately immolated. A few seconds later and the wards collapsed, the wardstones having apparently been destroyed.

He kept the _Fiendfyre _fed for a few moments longer, making sure the Horcrux had been destroyed, before dismissing the fires with a grunt of effort. He took a moment to look around, taking in the difference between his use in the Room of Requirement and here. The tree he had been leaning on a moment ago was on fire, normal, non-sentient fire, but fire none the less. In fact all the trees and plants he could see were either on fire or already ash and the ground had been blackened whilst the sky was obscured by a growing cloud of smoke. The shack had simply disintegrated and he was standing near the centre of a rapidly growing clearing.

It was truly a hellish scene.

"_Accio Horcrux_!" Harry coughed, not even taking a moment to look at whatever it was that had flown into his hand before he apparated away and reappeared, wheezing on a nearby hill.

He turned his eyes to Gauntwood and paled slightly. There was a great pillar of smoke and ash rising into the skies and the fires were rapidly spreading through the rest of the forest.

"I'd better get out of here," Harry muttered to himself, taking a long look round to make sure he wasn't being watched, before he apparated out, "Hope someone calls the Fire Brigade..."

* * *

**26****th**** August 1994 – Harry's Tent**

Harry was current flicking through the Potter Grimoire hoping to find some reference to the stone he had recovered from the Gaunt Shack. He believed it was once part of the Head of House's ring but the ring itself had been melted by the unnatural heat of _Fiendfyre._ There were an odd set of scratches in it, a line within a circle within a triangle, but he had yet to find anything thing.

Hopefully the library at Hogwarts would be of more help.

His Tent itself was much different now that he had finished the runes and wards. It was room more than a dozen metres square with several doors leading out of it. One led to the outside whilst the others led to his bedroom, storage rooms and bathroom.

The walls appeared to be wooden panels, pine by the looks of it, whilst the floors were a much darker wood and festooned with thick rugs. There were magical lamps flickering around the entire room illuminating it just as well during the night as the great windows in the walls and ceiling would during the day. There was a modern kitchen in one corner and a large dining table with seats in another, whilst the rest of the space appeared to be a huge living room.

Harry was currently enveloped by a huge overstuffed armchair, his feet propped up on a footstool and one hand keeping the Grimoire floating in front of him. His other hand was currently gesturing in small circles towards the kitchen, keeping the bacon and eggs he was planning on having for dinner cooking nicely.

'I love magic,' Harry thought happily, before letting the page of the Grimoire turn itself, '_Combat Applications of Memory Charms_? This could be interesting...'


End file.
